The lugubrious associations with which poets have invested the willow probably may be traced to the English translation of Psalm cxxxvii. 2; but, as noted on page 81, no willow grows on the banks of the Euphrates, and it was a species of poplar whereon the captive Jews hung their harps. Linnæus may be excused, in consideration of the difficulties of travel in the eighteenth century, for having named the weeping willow _Salix babylonica_, though that species is only to be found wild in China; but it is an instance of the mischievous practice of one writer copying the statements of another that in Kirkby's _Trees_ we read that the weeping willow "grows abundantly on the banks of the Euphrates and other parts of Asia, as in Palestine, and also in North Africa." The name "willow" speaks to us of a time when our Anglo-Saxon forbears dwelt in wattled houses. They spoke of the tree as _welig_ and also as _widig_ (whence our "withy"), the root-meaning being pliancy. Another old English name for the tree was "sallow," which in the north has been shortened into "saugh," a term associated with one of the darkest episodes in the somewhat murky annals of the Stuart dynasty; for it was at Sauchieburn near Stirling that James, Duke of Rothesay, aged fifteen years, was brought by the rebel lords to do battle with his father James III. on 11th June, 1488. King James, flying from the field, was done to death; and, in contrition, his son wore an iron chain round his waist till he, too, fell as James IV. at Flodden, twenty-five years later. The Gaelic for willow is _saileach_, whence innumerable place-names in Scotland and Ireland, such as Barnsallie, Barsalloch, Sallachy, Lisnasillagh, etc. The Hornbeam The hornbeam (_Carpinus betulus_) belongs to the birch family and the beech belongs to the oak family, so they are far from being nearly akin; nevertheless, the hornbeam and the beech have certain qualities singularly similar in the two species. First, the hornbeam imitates the foliage of the beech so closely that when either of them is dressed as a hedge plant (a purpose for which both are peculiarly suitable) it requires close inspection to determine which tree it is. Second, except the elder, the beech and the hornbeam are the only shade-bearers among our indigenous deciduous hardwoods--that is, the only broad-leaved trees--that will flourish under the shade and drip of other forest growths, thereby proving most useful for under-planting. Third, as firewood there is none equal to either beech or hornbeam, both of them excelling all other woods in the amount of heat they discharge in combustion. [Illustration: FRUIT OF HORNBEAM (_Carpinus betulus_)]