Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 137:2

"Willows." There is a pretty story told about the way in which the Weeping Willow was introduced into England.* Many years ago, the well-known poet, Alexander Pope, who resided at Twickenham, received a basket of figs as a present from Turkey. The basket was made ofthe supple branches of the Weeping Willow, the very same species under which the captive Jews sat when they wept by the waters of Babylon. "We hanged our harps upon the willows." The poet valued highly the small slender twigs as assoicated with so much that was interesting, and untwisted the basket, and planted one of the branches on the ground. It had some tidy buds upon it, and he hoped he might be able to rear it, as none of theis species of willow was know in England. Happily the willow is very quick to take root and grow. The little branch soon became a tree, and drooped gracefully over the river, in the same matter that its race had done over the waters of Babylon. From that one branch all the Weeping Willows in England are descended. —Mary and Elizabeth Kirby, in "Chapters on Trees," 1873. *The two preceding extracts would seem to prove that this story is not true; at least Evelyn's willow is evidently the weeping willow, and would seem to have long been known.