Salix babylonica Salix babylonica Salix babylonica (Babylon willow or weeping willow; ) is a species of willow native to dry areas of northern China, but cultivated for millennia elsewhere in Asia, being traded along the Silk Road to southwest Asia and Europe. "Salix babylonica" is a medium- to large-sized deciduous tree, growing up to 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
Salix myrtilloides new leaves appear. The leaves resemble bilberry ("Vaccinium uliginosum") leaves in shape, hence the name in the Finnish and Swedish languages, which translates as "bog bilberry willow". A very similar, closely related species, "Salix pedicellaris" (bog willow), occurs in northern North America; it is classified as a variety of swamp willow "S. myrtilloides" var. "pedicellaris" by some botanists. Salix myrtilloides Salix myrtilloides, the swamp willow, is a willow native to boglands in cool temperate to subarctic regions of northeastern Europe and northern Asia from central Norway and Poland eastwards to the Pacific Ocean coasts, with isolated populations further south in