ow are
"forced" into bud by the florists, and sold in the cities in great
quantities; but really to see it one must find the low tree or bush by a
stream in the woods, or along the roadside, with a chance to note its
fullness of blossom. It is finest just when the hepaticas are at their
bluest on the warm hillsides; and, one sunny afternoon of a spring
journey along the north branch of the Susquehanna river, I did not know
which of the two conspicuous ornaments of the deeply wooded bank made me
most anxious to jump from the too swiftly moving train.

This pussy-willow has pleasing leaves, and is a truly ornamental shrub
or small tree which will flourish quite well in a dry back yard, as I
have reason to know. One bright day in February I found a pussy-willow
tree, with its deep purple buds showing not a hint of the life within.
The few twigs brought home quickly expanded when placed in water, and
gave us their forecast of the spring. One twig was, out of curiosity,
left in the water after the catkins had faded, merely to see what would
happen. It bravely sent forth leaves, while at the base little white
rootlets appeared. Its vigor appealing to us, it was planted in an arid
spot in our back yard, and it is now, after a year and a half, a
handsome, slender young tree that will give us a whole family of silken
pussy-buds to stroke and admire another spring.

[Illustration: A pussy-willow in a park]

This same little tree is called also the glaucous willow, and it is
botanically _Salix discolor_. It is more distinct than some others of
the family, for the willow is a great mixer. The tree expert who will
unerringly distinguish between the red oak and the scarlet oak by the
precise angle of the spinose margins of the leaves (how I admire an
accuracy I do not possess!) will balk at which is crack willow, or white
willow, or yellow or blue willow. The abundant vigor and vitality and
freedom of the family, and the fact that it is of what is known as the
dioecious habit--that is, the flowers are not complete, fertile and
infertile flowers being borne on separate trees--make it most ready to
hybridize. The pollen of the black willow may fertilize the flower of
the white willow, with a result that certainly tends to grayness on the
worrying head of the botanist who, in after years, is trying to locate
the result of the cross!

[Illustration: Blossoms of the white willow]

There is much variety in the willow flowers--and I wo