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The Willow

Quick Notes about the Willow Take me here now

The willow is on the edge of the lake
The willow is on the edge of the lake
Look for the long narrow leaves
Look for the long narrow leaves
The willow trunk is covered in vines and creepers
The willow trunk is covered in vines and creepers
Logs which fall in the water can become new trees
Logs which fall in the water can become new trees

The Facts

Tree Type: The willow is a deciduous tree with long, narrow leaves and a strong liking for moist ground or riverbanks. It is a pioneer species, meaning that it will attempt to spread aggressively into new areas if given an opportunity. Weeping willows, with long dangling branches, are a familiar sight along rivers.

Location: Most willow species live in the cooler parts of the northern hemisphere.

Ecology: Willows are famous for being able to take root from cuttings or broken branches and start a new tree. There are cut willow logs in the lake at Staunton which are starting to sprout new branches. Willow roots go far and wide in search of water, and often cause problems in cities by breaking into water pipes.

The Legends 

Willow wood is unusually flexible, and was turned into some of mankind’s earliest tools and wicker products such as woven baskets and traps.

The bark of the willow is rich in a compound called salicin, which has been used for thousands of years to treat pain. In the 19th century it was synthesised to produce a pharmaceutical product called aspirin.

In old English folklore, willow trees could uproot themselves and stalk unwary travellers in a rather creepy way.

One legend says that all the weeping willows in England are descended from a single twig planted by the poet Alexander Pope in the 18th century.

Make sure your volume is on: "One tree can relive for hundreds of years"

Show transcript

We’ve got a willow tree, a nice tree about 30m tall. Salix Alba, which is white willow I believe [I’m rubbish at willow!] . A native tree to the UK, a wonderful tree. It has many, many uses. One of its uses is its bark and its sap is used in medicine. It is also used to revet rivers a lot, because it grows so well. You can literally cut a branch off, stick it in the ground, and it will grow again [it loves water]. So they weave them along river branks as a natural barrier. That’s about all I know about willow!

It loves water, so you will always find it near a wet area and rivers. It will grow elsewhere but it is predominantly in a wet area. And one of its reproduction systems is that it will drop branches into the river which will float downstream and then hit the bank and then sprout and regrow. As Scott says, you can stick a twig in the ground and it will stick roots out and start again. [We have literally got logs that we cut from a willow that people chucked them in and they’re all growing!]

We have a log in the pond that was thrown in and is now starting a new set of trees. So you may have a river bank which is actually one tree…it’s just a copy, a clone of one tree stretching all the way down the river bank…

[And wildlife chew the bark as well if they don’t feel well.]

Medicinal purposes, yes! Aspirin comes from willow. Generally depending on its surroundings – this one has gone straight up and out – its form will vary in its habitat. So it will grow sideways, it will grow up, it will grow down. It will grow wherever the light demands.

It has got quite a fissured bark. The younger stems are very green which is used for basketweaving and various other woodcrafts. The leaf is a lance shape, which is great for the ground flora because it lets the dappled light down.

What else do we like about willow? It is great for coppicing…coppicing is a system of cutting down trees and regenerating it for a process [they are using it for biomass] so one tree can relive for hundreds of years by cutting it down every 20 years and taking off all that new growth. So it is the same rootstock system in the ground, but the branches just keep refreshing.

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