Willow Catkins and a Poem

Today the catkins are opening, yellow pollen emerges.

This willow tree is a direct descendant of a cutting taken from Napoleon’s grave at St Helena and brought to Scotland by the first Lord Newlands some time in the nineteenth century and re-planted in the grounds of his lordship’s home at Mauldslie Castle.

Mr Ritchie, a gardner at Mauldslie, observed ‘the trees differ from other willows in the area in respect of the slenderness of the leaves, the copper colour of the bark, and the silvery colour of the catkins’.

The catkins are likened to silver spears in a poem by the late George M. MacGregor of Motherwell Mill. The poet suggests that these trees have inherited Napoleon’s stamina, vigour and aggressive qualities.

GESTURE

His late and leisured Lordship
By coach and packet home
Conveyed the sampling willow
From Bonaparte’s tomb
And set the token tree beside
His calm, uncontroversial Clyde

So here the blood imperial
Bears yet the storming years
And first for Spring’s redemption
Drives on the silver spears;
And ever Waterloo outwits
With this triumphant Austerlitz.