Unpretentious sails are a modest and useful gift of nature to man. Many species united in the family with the Latin name Salix (literal translation - "close water") gave numerous names to these deciduous trees: branched, willow, willow, talnik, vine, delirium, sheluga, rakita and broom, rudd, black and others many other. Shrub varieties grow in Siberia and Central Asia. Usually they are called a talnik. In the conditions of the polar north and highlands dwarf winds grow. These are 2.5 cm tall species creeping on the ground. In good natural conditions (a spacious, lit place, soil of moderate humidity, light loamy or loamy sand) the height of the trunk is 25 m with a diameter in cross section of 1.5 m. In Astrakhan, instead of a tree, willow is generally said. In Russia, detached mighty trees are called rakita, willow, and wind.
What tree is it?
Most often, willow is called white willow.
The crown of the trees is transparent-lace: in young trees - columnar, in long-livers - sprawling spherical. The bark on the trunks and central branches pointing up, gray, is cut by wide and spongy wrinkles. Lateral branches are thin and long, they fall down. The bark on them is light green. The leaves are lanceolate on short petioles, the tops are green smooth, and the bottom is dull silky silvery green. Vetla is
a dioecious plant: there are female and male trees, which differ in nondescript flowers.
Where he was born, there he fit
Vetla is a tree with excellent survival rate and fast growing. Where it is necessary to stop the destructive process of ravine formation, they resort to planting cuttings, stakes of this plant. In those places where there are no forests, sails are building materials (beams, boards) that you can grow yourself on your site quite quickly. After 40 years, young slender sails fit for sawing. Sawn wood is a soft, pliable elastic material, slightly inferior to linden in its qualities. Arcs, hoops bend from the branches, hollow the decks. From the stakes and rods they make wattle-fences in the countryside. Not only baskets are woven from thin branches. In the hands of craftsmen, a flexible vine turns into fashionable and beautiful furniture. The bark of branches is needed in the leather industry for tanning leathers, their dyeing. Vetlu (branches, bark, flowers) is used in folk medicine. Salicylic acid was first obtained from bark. Flowering trees attract bees with nectar. Vetla is the material for the landscape of city parks. Bark, twigs and leaves are a favorite goat food.
Legends of antiquity
Vetla (willow, willow) is known all over the world. Orthodox Christians of Russia know Palm Sunday, celebrated a week before the Resurrection of Christ. The church blesses willow twigs (vetles). Such a branch in the old days drove cattle for grazing on May Egoriev day. In the
horoscope of the Druids, the first decade of March and the September period from 3 to 12 are assigned to people born under the sign "Willow". There are many sayings, proverbs, but more often they mention willow, most likely for rhyme. The same thing applies to windsurfing. As you know, this is the same tree, differently called.