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 translations): Despite these Biblical references to "willows", whether in Latin or English, the trees growing in Babylon along the Euphrates River in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and named "gharab" in early Hebrew, are not willows ("Salix") in either the modern or the classical sense, but the Euphrates poplar "(Populus euphratica)," with willow-like leaves on long, drooping shoots, in the related genus "Populus." Both "Populus" and "Salix" are in the plant family Salicaceae, the willow family. These Babylonian trees are correctly called poplars, not willows, in the New International Version of the "Bible" (English, 1978): Salix babylonica Salix babylonica (Babylon willow