If any tree appears most often in Chinese poetry, it is surely the willow. It grows on riverbanks and along roads, its branches soft and drooping; when the wind blows, ten thousand strands sway as one. When Chinese people look at a willow, they see spring, parting, and home—the willow is the most “lyrical” of all plants.

The Willow and “Stay”

“Willow” (liu) sounds like “stay” (liu), and the ancients broke willow branches when seeing off a friend precisely to mean “I would keep you here.” As early as the Book of Songs, the willow was bound to parting: “When I left, the willows lingered gently; now I return, snow and rain falling thick.” For a thousand years since, breaking a willow at the Ba Bridge became the farewell ritual: a friend journeys far, and you hand him a willow branch, wishing he might take root anywhere like the willow, and hoping he remembers the heart that wished to “keep” him. The willow branch is soft and bends without breaking—exactly like the lingering, unbroken ties of the one left behind.

— Wang Zhihuan, Tang Dynasty, “Farewell” —

Willow and east-wind trees,

green along the imperial river.

So many branches lately broken—

it must be that partings are many.

The First Touch of Green in Spring

The willow is among the first trees to feel spring. In the biting cold, while other trees still sleep, willow branches already flush with a downy yellow, then push out tender buds—what the poets call “willow eyes opening” is the news of spring. He Zhizhang wrote, “Who cut these slender leaves? The February spring wind, like scissors,” comparing the wind to a tailor and the willow leaves to its most delicate stitching. Around Qingming, willow fluff flies like snow; the ancients called it “willow blossom”—”in the spring city, nowhere without flying blossom” describes exactly this scene.

• How to know it: Willow bark is gray-brown with longitudinal cracks; leaves are long and narrow like eyebrows (hence “willow-leaf eyebrows”); unlike the poplar, the willow droops and its leaves are finer.
• Planting willows: Willows root from cuttings almost effortlessly—”plant a willow carelessly and shade will come”—and in old times people inserted willow branches and wore willow sprigs at Qingming for their promise of warding off evil and new life.
• Practical uses: Willow twigs are supple and good for weaving baskets; willow wood is light and soft, once used for utensils and charcoal.

One Willow, a Thousand Heartaches

In Chinese culture, the willow is almost a synonym for emotion: the willow of spring is joyful, the willow of parting is clinging, the willow of late autumn is bleak. “At the willow-shore bank, dawn wind and a waning moon”—Liu Yong hung his parting sorrow on willow branches; “why need the Qiang flute resent the willow”—Wang Zhihuan blew homesickness into a willow flute. An utterly ordinary tree, through the softness of its branches and the toughness of its life, has carried the most delicate feelings of the Chinese people. Watching a willow is really watching your own heart sway along with the branches.

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Keywords: willow · breaking willow at farewell · “willows lingered” · Qingming willow customs · lyrical plant