The Chinese Weeping Willow, a green import from the dry regions of China, has immense popularity in the gardens of Asia. Its long leaves hang down from pendulous stems, giving it the appearance of tears falling down someone’s eyes, and hence its strange nickname. Historically, it was spread beyond its native range via the famous Silk Route.
This tree was discovered and named by taxonomist Carl Linnaeus, who is revered today as the father of the binomial nomenclature system. This system of naming all creatures on this earth, including us humans (Homo sapiens), is now universally accepted as the scientific two-name system. However, Carl Linnaeus mistook this tree to be the one referred to in the Holy Bible (Psalm 137) and hence, named it Salix babylonica. Detailed studies conducted later on have revealed that the Christian holy book refers to the closely-related Poplar trees growing along River Euphrates in ancient Mesopotamia and not to this Weeping Willow growing far away in China. Be that as may, this Chinese tree now permanently has a Babylonian name given to it by the Father of Taxonomy himself!