weeping crack willow

Salix babylonica is a medium- to large-sized deciduous tree, growing up to 20–25 m (66–82 ft) 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 (1.6–6.3 in) long and 0.5–2 cm (0.2–0.8 in) 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.

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. Weeping willow tea has been reported successfully used for rooting a wide variety of plants including but not limited to; goji, Himalayan raspberry, limequat, honeyberry, lemon verbena.

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.