Botanical lore

Although there are over five hundred species of willow, the white willow is the most common of the genus and most easily identified by its often irregular shape, where the trunk leans slantwise under a wide crown of floating silvery foliage. This habit identifies its kinship with water. Being waterproof, willow enjoys water, especially in well ventilated soils, where it can tolerate long floods.

 

A flat root system can mean it gets washed away by rivers, or blown over by the wind and storms, however, even separated trunks or branches can just keep on growing in a new place or in a modified direction. A new horizontal trunk might start growing a mass of new shoots and, as single twigs can also root in damp soil, its ability to produce new suckers or grow from cuttings makes the willow potentially immortal.

 

However, although white willow grows up to eighty feet, it rarely lives beyond much beyond a hundred years. Goat willow can reach more than five hundred years of age, though rarely grows above thirty five feet. Its powerful ability to regenerate makes white willow the perfect maintainer of river valleys frequently exposed to spring floods.

 

Its cousin, the goat willow (called pussy willow in England and sally willow in Ireland), with its broader, elliptic leaves can thrive in drier conditions, where it is often found in dumps, wastelands or on the edge of moors and even in light mountain woodlands up to 6,500 feet. White willow, by contrast does not grow above 2,500 feet and is distinguished by its long, lance-shaped, pointed leaves, which are four to six times longer than they are wide. Although all willows share fast growth and survive storm damage, their wood is soft, not very durable and soon falls prey to wood fungi.

 

For pollarding and coppicing, willow is excellent and unmatched. All willows are either male or female (dioecious) and their flowers appear in early March, forming an important early source of food for bees. The grey-silver catkins and seeds are hairy, and the silky plumes allow it to be blown to new habitats, where its robust seeds germinate and grow strongly.

 

Medicinally well described by greeks such as Hippocrates and Paracelsus, as well as Culpeper and others, willow bark is an ancient remedy for soothing pains, particularly rheumatics. It has been used for centuries to treat digestive inflammations, kidney and bladder problems, rashes and headaches. With febrifugal, sudorific and astringent effects, its main component - salicin - oxidizes in the human body to become salicylic acid.

 

Salicin was identified in 1827 and its analgesic form, acetysalicylic acid (aspirin), in 1898. Like aspirin, willow bark has the disadvantage that, taken in constant doses, it irritates the stomach lining, although it is excellent for gargling and bleeding gums, mouth inflammations or, as a footbath, for sweating feet. Interestingly, willow is a good example of the way nature reflects the affliction - here associated with wetness - in its cure, growing as it does in wetlands. This homoeopathic aspect applies to the Bach Flower remedy also, as willow (salix vitellina) helps those who constantly blame others (or are 'wet') to think constructively.

 

Odd notes:
Root: salix (latin) helice (greek)
Sap: as drink to clear vision;
Wood: baskets, beehives, lobster pots, pegs, floats, fencing. artists charcoal, artificial limbs. osier beds, hedging.
Seeds: have feathery down, used for stuffing mattresses;
Bark: mixes with oatmeal for food, treats wounds,  tanning, twine;
Leaves and bark: source of salicylic acid;

 

Mythology

'the Moon owns it', said Culpeper of the willow in his Complete Herbal. Although unlikely to have been the first to do so, the Sumerian goddess, Belili, once ruled over the moon, love and the underworld. Living in the willows, she was responsible for springs and wells. And in Greece, association with willows include Circe, the moon goddess who had a willow grove, dedicated to Hecate, the goddess of death. Persephone too had a sacred grove 'remarkable for its black poplars and aged willows', to which Odysseus is sent by Circe to meet the spirit of a dead seer. Significantly, helice is the greek name for willow, and also for the goddess, Helice, of Mount Helicon, where also lived the Nine Muses as priestesses.

 

Sacred to poets, willows have been associated with the moon and female power since earliest times, particularly psychic abililities and divination through water, healing and magic. Because of this, the willow was declared in later Christian times to be in league with Judas, the devil and witches. The tree that wickerwork was made from became associated with wicked, witches, wrong and wretched, even affecting the wryneck (a bird that uses willow to nest in)... Tradition persisted fortunately, however, and going to the willow for relief of ailments and diseases, folk medicine, spells and white magic remained. For travellers, willow is lucky to carry as a rod when travelling and a  branch bearing catkins in the home brings luck. However, willow has unlucky attributes to burn as fuel, hence 'burn not the willow' and (another old saying)  'if forsaken in love, wear the willow wand'...