Salix babylonica grown weeping willow cultivar is "Salix × sepulcralis" 'Chrysocoma', with bright yellowish branchlets. 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. The epithet "babylonica" in this Chinese species' scientific name "(S. babylonica)," as well as the related common names "Babylon willow" or "Babylon weeping willow", derive from a misunderstanding by Linnaeus that this willow was the tree described in the "Bible" in the opening of Psalm 137 (here in Latin and English
Salix babylonica northern Syria in 1730. 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: 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. A similar willow species also native