Salix babylonica

Appearance

''Salix babylonica'' is a medium- to large-sized deciduous tree, growing up to 20–25 m tall. It grows rapidly, but has a short lifespan, between 40 and 75 years. The shoots are Yellowish-brown, with small buds. The leaves are alternate and spirally arranged, narrow, light green, 4–16 cm long and 0.5–2 cm broad, with finely serrate margins and long acuminate tips; they turn a gold-yellow in autumn. The flowers are arranged in catkins produced early in the spring; it is dioecious, with the male and female catkins on separate trees.

Uses

Peking willow is a popular ornamental tree in northern China, and is also grown for wood production and shelterbelts there, being particularly important around the oases of the Gobi Desert, protecting agricultural land from desert winds.

Cultural

"Weeping willow" redirects here. For other uses, see Weeping Willow.

Early Chinese cultivar selections include the original weeping willow, ''Salix babylonica'' 'Pendula', in which the branches and twigs are strongly pendulous, which was presumably spread along ancient trade routes. These distinctive trees were subsequently introduced into England from Aleppo in northern Syria in 1730, and have rapidly become naturalised, growing well along rivers and in parks. These plants are all females, readily propagated vegetatively, and capable of hybridizing with various other kinds of willows, but not breeding true from seed. This type of tree is grown very easily through plant propagation.

Two cultivated hybrids between pendulous ''Salix babylonica'' and other species of ''Salix'' willows also have pendulous branchlets, and are more commonly planted than ''S. babylonica'' itself:

⤷  ''Salix'' × ''pendulina'', a hybrid with ''S. babylonica'' accepted as the female parent, but with the male parent unidentified, probably being either ''S. euxina'' or ''S''. × ''fragilis'', but perhaps ''S. pentandra''. Of these possibilities, ''S''. × ''fragilis'' is itself a hybrid, with ''S. alba'' and ''S. euxina'' as parental species.
⤷  ''Salix'' × ''sepulcralis'', is a hybrid between ''S. alba'' and ''S. babylonica''.

Cultivars derived from either of these hybrids are generally better adapted than ''S. babylonica'' to the more humid climates of most heavily populated regions of Europe and North America.