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62-678: The gorge has steep walls, some more than 500 metres (1,600 ft) in height. It has historically been much used by humans as a natural pass through the Sierra Morena , constituting a principal path of connection between Andalusia and the Meseta Central , Castile-La Mancha , and the rest of Spain. Today the Despeñaperros is the route of the Autovía A-4 and of one of Andalusia's most important railway connections to

124-403: A gap , saddle , col or notch . A topographic saddle is analogous to the mathematical concept of a saddle surface , with a saddle point marking the minimum high point between two valleys and the lowest point along a ridge. On a topographic map , passes can be identified by contour lines with an hourglass shape, which indicates a low spot between two higher points. In the high mountains,

186-502: A difference of 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) between the summit and the mountain is defined as a mountain pass. Passes are often found just above the source of a river , constituting a drainage divide . A pass may be very short, consisting of steep slopes to the top of the pass, or a valley many kilometers long, whose highest point might only be identifiable by surveying . Roads and railways have long been built through passes. Some high and rugged passes may have tunnels bored underneath

248-426: A few days; they require warm and moist conditions to take root. The plants can also reproduce vegetatively from decapitated stumps and branches. Willows produce a modest amount of nectar from which bees can make honey , and are especially valued as a source of early pollen for bees. Various animals browse the foliage or shelter amongst the plants. Beavers use willows to build dams. The trees are used as food by

310-497: A letter to the Royal Society describing his experiments with powdered bark of white willow ( Salix alba ). He had noticed the willow bark tasted bitter, like 'Peruvian Bark' ( cinchona ), which was used to treat fevers, and he speculated that the willow would have a similar effect. Over several years he tested it on as many as fifty patients and found it to be highly effective (especially when mixed with cinchona). Whether this

372-531: A nearby mountainside, as with the Eisenhower Tunnel bypassing Loveland Pass in the Rockies, to allow faster traffic flow throughout the year. The top of a pass is frequently the only flat ground in the area, and may be a high vantage point. In some cases this makes it a preferred site for buildings. If a national border follows the ridge of a mountain range, a pass over the mountains is typically on

434-621: A sign of its antiquity). The castle was later occupied by the Almohads until it was captured and garrisoned by Alfonso VIII 's troops on 18 July 1212, following the Battle of the Navas de Tolosa . During the Peninsular War , especially during the first weeks of June 1808, Napoleon's troops had great difficulty in maintaining fluid communications between Madrid and Andalusia, mainly due to

496-786: A style of street racing which may take place on these roads. There are thousands of named passes around the world, some of which are well-known, such as the Khyber Pass close to the present-day Afghanistan-Pakistan border on the ancient Silk Road , the Great St. Bernard Pass at 2,473 metres (8,114 ft) in the Alps , the Chang La at 5,360 metres (17,590 ft), the Khardung La at 5,359 metres (17,582 ft) in Ladakh , India and

558-513: A willow will attempt to put out leaves and flowers. In the northern hemisphere, leaf drop in autumn occurs when day length shortens to approximately ten hours and 25 minutes, which varies by latitude (as early as the first week of October for boreal species such as S. alaxensis and as late as the third week of December for willows growing in far southern areas). With the exception of Salix martiana , willows are dioecious , with male and female flowers appearing as catkins on separate plants;

620-500: Is a hybrid of Peking willow ( Salix babylonica ) from China and white willow ( Salix alba ) from Europe. The widely planted Chinese willow Salix matsudana is now considered a synonym of S. babylonica . Numerous cultivars of Salix have been developed and named over the centuries. New selections of cultivars with superior technical and ornamental characteristics have been chosen deliberately and applied to various purposes. Many cultivars and unmodified species of Salix have gained

682-423: Is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge . Since mountain ranges can present formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both human and animal migration throughout history. At lower elevations it may be called a hill pass . A mountain pass is typically formed between two volcanic peaks or created by erosion from water or wind. Mountain passes make use of

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744-888: Is also used, particularly in Europe. In the highest mountain range in the world, the Himalayas, passes are denoted by the suffix "La" in Tibetan, Ladhakhi, and several other regional languages. Examples are the Taglang La at 5,328 m (17,480 ft) on the Leh-Manali highway , and the Sia La at 5,589 m (18,337 ft) in the Eastern Karakoram range. Scotland has the Gaelic term bealach (anglicised "balloch"), while Wales has

806-484: Is an important presence of deer ( Cervidae ) and wild boars ( Sus scrofa ); there are authorized hunts of both. There are also Iberian lynxes ( Lynx pardinus ) and wolves , as well as small carnivores such as foxes , Egyptian mongooses ( Herpestes ichneumon ) and wildcats ( Felis silvestris ). Birds in Despeñaperros include the Spanish imperial eagle ( Aquila adalberti , also known as Adalbert's eagle) and

868-670: Is crossed by some rivers oriented north–south, so that some zones of the Meseta Central drain south to the Guadalquivir and thence to the Atlantic Ocean , crossing the theoretical natural barrier of the range. One of these is the Despeñaperros river, but the Guarrizas also crosses 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) to the east, forming the beautiful Cimbarra Falls, protected as a paraje natural . The Despeñaperros flows into

930-436: Is one-celled, the style two-lobed, and the ovules numerous. The scientific use of the genus name Salix originates with Carl Linnaeus in 1753. The modern concept of types did not exist at the time, so types for Linnaeus' genera had to be designated later. The type species , i.e., the species on which the genus name is based, is Salix alba , based on a conserved type. The generic name Salix comes from Latin and

992-771: Is the Brenner pass in the Alps . Some mountain passes above the tree line have problems with snow drift in the winter. This might be alleviated by building the road a few meters above the ground, which will make snow blow off the road. There are many words for pass in the English-speaking world. In the United States, pass is very common in the West , the word gap is common in the southern Appalachians , notch in parts of New England , and saddle in northern Idaho . The term col , derived from Old French,

1054-635: Is uncertain. The seeds of the Haluppu-tree were recommended in the Sumerian narrative of Gilgameš, Enkidu and the Nether World as treatment for infertility, but the "Haluppu-tree" could have been oak, poplar or willow. The ancient Egyptian Ebers Papyrus mentions willow (of uncertain species) in three remedies. One, as part of an elaborate recipe for a poultice to "make the met supple," which involved 36 other ingredients including "fruit of

1116-667: The Latin word salix , willow). Some willows (particularly arctic and alpine species) are low-growing or creeping shrubs; for example, the dwarf willow ( Salix herbacea ) rarely exceeds 6 centimetres ( 2 + 1 ⁄ 2  in) in height, though it spreads widely across the ground. Willows all have abundant watery bark sap , which is heavily charged with salicylic acid , soft, usually pliant, tough wood, slender branches, and large, fibrous, often stoloniferous roots . The roots are remarkable for their toughness, size, and tenacity to live, and roots readily sprout from aerial parts of

1178-594: The Palakkad Gap at 140 metres (460 ft) in Palakkad , Kerala , India . The roads at Mana Pass at 5,610 metres (18,410 ft) and Marsimik La at 5,582 metres (18,314 ft), on and near the China–India border respectively, appear to be world's two highest motorable passes. Khunjerab Pass between Pakistan and China at 4,693 metres (15,397 ft) is also a high-altitude motorable mountain pass. One of

1240-642: The Royal Horticultural Society 's Award of Garden Merit . Most recently, Salix has become an important source for bioenergy production and for various ecosystem services . Names of hybrids and cultivars were until recently (2021) compiled by a working party of the UN FAO, the International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRAs) for the genus Salix (willows) Archived 7 December 2018 at

1302-594: The Wayback Machine , but it is no longer active. The Quinault people made the bark into a twine which sometimes served as harpoon line. The wood was used by some Native American tribes to start fires by friction , the shoots to weave baskets , and both the branches and stems to build various items including fishing weirs . The leaves and bark of the willow have been mentioned in ancient texts from Assyria , Sumer and Egypt and in Ancient Greece

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1364-694: The griffon vulture ( Gyps fulvus ). As well as the Cimbarra Falls and the caves in the area, Despeñaperros has important examples of Neolithic cave painting , proof that humans have long been aware of these passages between the Meseta Central and Andalusia . Notable among the area's caves are the Cueva de los Muñecos and the Cuevas de las Vacas del Rematoso . During the Iron Age , local caves were often use for depositing bronze votive offerings for

1426-447: The larvae of some species of Lepidoptera , such as the mourning cloak butterfly . Ants, such as wood ants , are common on willows inhabited by aphids , coming to collect aphid honeydew , as sometimes do wasps . Willow species are hosts to more than a hundred aphid species, belonging to Chaitophorus and other genera, forming large colonies to feed on plant juices, on the underside of leaves in particular. Corythucha elegans ,

1488-605: The Guarrizas about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) south of the gorge. The vertical walls of the gorge expose geological layers that reveal the history of the surrounding land. The walls are composed of extremely hard "Armorican" quartzite , formed in the ocean 500 million years ago in the Paleozoic , which were later covered by more recent materials. In the Carboniferous these were elevated and exposed to erosion, finally to be discovered here and at Cimbarra Falls. According to

1550-463: The Sierra Morena, hold the mountains from the guerrillas and link up with Dupont, pacifying Castile-La Mancha along the way. Vedel was joined during the march by small detachments under Generals Roize and Ligier-Belair. On 26 June 1808 Vedel's column defeated Lieutenant-Colonel Valdecaños' detachment of Spanish regulars and guerrillas with six guns blocking the mountain pass of Puerta del Rey and

1612-487: The active constituent. It was long after the invention of aspirin that the idea emerged that willow bark is an effective painkiller. It may often be based on the belief that willow actually contains aspirin. Articles asserting that the ancients used willow for this purpose have been published in academic journals such as the British Journal of Haematology . There are now many papers, books and articles repeating

1674-404: The activity of guerrilleros in the Sierra Morena. The first attack around Despeñaperros took place on 5 June 1808, when two squadrons of French dragoons were attacked at the northern entrance to the pass and forced to retreat to the nearby town of Almuradiel . On 19 June General Vedel was ordered to head south from Toledo with a division of 6,000 men, 700 horses and 12 guns to force a passage over

1736-458: The border, and there may be a border control or customs station, and possibly a military post. For instance, Argentina and Chile share the world's third-longest international border , 5,300 kilometres (3,300 mi) long, which runs north–south along the Andes mountains and includes 42 mountain passes. On a road over a pass, it is customary to have a small roadside sign giving the name of

1798-486: The bud scale is fused into a cap-like shape, but in some species it wraps around and the edges overlap. The leaves are simple, feather-veined, and typically linear-lanceolate. Usually they are serrate, rounded at base, acute or acuminate. The leaf petioles are short, the stipules often very conspicuous, resembling tiny, round leaves, and sometimes remaining for half the summer. On some species, however, they are small, inconspicuous, and caducous (soon falling). In color,

1860-413: The bud, but orange or purple after the flower opens; they are two-celled and the cells open latitudinally. The filaments are threadlike, usually pale brown, and often bald. The pistillate (female) flowers are also without calyx or corolla, and consist of a single ovary accompanied by a small, flat nectar gland and inserted on the base of a scale which is likewise borne on the rachis of a catkin. The ovary

1922-440: The catkins are produced early in the spring, often before the leaves. The staminate (male) flowers have neither calyx nor corolla ; they consist simply of stamens, varying in number from two to 10, accompanied by a nectariferous gland and inserted on the base of a scale which is itself borne on the rachis of a drooping raceme called a catkin, or ament. This scale is square, entire, and very hairy. The anthers are rose-colored in

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1984-604: The causes of fevers were poorly understood, and there is no suggestion at all of any possible analgesic effect from the use of willow. The first lasting evidence that salicylate, from willow and other plant species, might have real medicinal uses came in 1876, when the Scottish physician Thomas MacLagan experimented with salicin as a treatment for acute rheumatism , with considerable success, as he reported in The Lancet . Meanwhile, German scientists tried salicylic acid in

2046-653: The claim that the ancients used willow for pain relief, and numerous willow-based products can be purchased for this purpose. Modern research suggests that only the mildest analgesic effect could be derived from the use of willow extract, and even that may be due to flavonoids and polyphenols as much as salicylic acid. Some of humans' earliest manufactured items may have been made from willow. A fishing net made from willow dates back to 8300 BC. Basic crafts, such as baskets, fish traps, wattle fences and wattle and daub house walls, were woven from osiers or withies (rod-like willow shoots, often grown in pollards ). One of

2108-537: The development of aspirin in the late 1800s." Herbal uses of willow have continued into modern times. In the early 20th century, Maud Grieve described using the bark and the powdered root of white willow ( Salix alba ) for its tonic , antiperiodic and astringent qualities and recommended its use in treating dyspepsia, worms, chronic diarrhoea and dysentery. Like other herbalists, she makes no mention of it having any analgesic effect, despite widespread awareness of aspirin by this time, and she considered tannin to be

2170-439: The dompalm, beans and amaa grains." The meaning of met is uncertain, but it may be something to do with the nervous system. The second is as part of a treatment for the "Great Debility," when "rush from the green willow tree" is combined with ass's semen, fresh bread, herbs of the field, figs, grapes and wine. Finally, it is used as a stiffening agent in a concoction of "fat flesh, figs, dates, incense, garlic and sweet beer" to put

2232-667: The famous but non-motorable mountain passes is Thorong La at 5,416 metres (17,769 ft) in Annapurna Conservation Area , Nepal. Salix Willows , also called sallows and osiers , of the genus Salix , comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs , found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known as willow , but some narrow-leaved shrub species are called osier , and some broader-leaved species are referred to as sallow (from Old English sealh , related to

2294-404: The following day met up with Dupont at La Carolina , reestablishing military communications with Madrid after a month of disruption. Finally, General Gobert 's division set out from Madrid on 2 July to reinforce Dupont. However, only one brigade of his division ultimately reached Dupont, the rest being needed to hold the road north against the guerrillas. Mountain pass Aa mountain pass

2356-434: The form of sodium salicylate, a sodium salt, with less success and more severe side effects. The treatment of rheumatic fever with salicin gradually gained some acceptance in medical circles. The discovery of acetanilide , in the 1880s, gave rise to an 'acetylation' craze, where chemists experimented with adding an acetyl group to various aromatic organic compounds. Back in 1853, chemist Charles Frédéric Gerhardt treated

2418-628: The forms of Welsh coracle boat traditionally uses willow in the framework. Thin or split willow rods can be woven into wicker , which has a long history. The relatively pliable willow is less likely to split while being woven than many other woods, and can be bent around sharp corners in basketry. Willow wood is used in the manufacture of boxes , brooms , cricket bats , cradle boards , chairmans and other furniture, dolls , willow flutes , poles , sweat lodges , toys, turnery, tool handles, wood veneer , wands and whistles . In addition, tannin , fibre , paper, rope and string can be produced from

2480-483: The genus Cistus , myrtle (genus Myrtus ) and kermes oak ( Quercus coccifera ). There are also riparian forests along the various rivers and streams, shadier and more humid, with alders (genus Alnus ), ash (genus Fraxinus ) and willows (genus Salix ). The natural park also holds 30 endemic species or subspecies unique in the world, and others unique in the Iberian Peninsula . There

2542-603: The genus are known from the early Eocene of North America, with the earliest occurrences in Europe during the Early Oligocene . The genus Salix is made up of around 350 species of deciduous trees and shrubs . They hybridise freely, and over 160 such hybrids have been named. Examples of well-known willows include: Willows are shade tolerant and typically short-lived. They require disturbances to outcompete conifers or large deciduous species. The seeds are tiny, plentiful, carried by wind and water, and viable only for

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2604-414: The ground (an exception is the peachleaf willow ( Salix amygdaloides )). One famous example of such growth from cuttings involves the poet Alexander Pope , who begged a twig from a parcel tied with twigs sent from Spain to Lady Suffolk . This twig was planted and thrived, and legend has it that all of England's weeping willows are descended from this first one. Willows are extensively cultivated around

2666-594: The heart into proper working order and make it take up nourishment. The Roman author Aulus Cornelius Celsus only mentions willow once: the leaves, pounded and boiled in vinegar, were to be used as treatment for uterine prolapse , but it is unclear what he considered the therapeutic action to be; it is unlikely to have been pain relief, as he recommended cauterization in the following paragraph. Nicholas Culpeper , in The Complete Herbal , gives many uses for willow, including to staunch wounds, to "stay

2728-424: The heat of lust" in man or woman, and to provoke urine ("if stopped"), but he makes no mention of any supposed analgesic properties. His recommendation to use the burnt ashes of willow bark, mixed with vinegar, to "take away warts, corns, and superfluous flesh," seems to correspond with modern uses of salicylic acid . William Turner 's account, written about 1597, focuses on the ability of the leaves and bark to "stay

2790-483: The late 1990s, Daniel Moerman reported many uses of willow by Native Americans. One modern field guide claims that Native Americans across the Americas relied on the willow as a staple of their medical treatments, using the bark to treat ailments such as sore throat and tuberculosis, and further alleging that "Several references mention chewing willow bark as an analgesic for headache and other pain, apparently presaging

2852-400: The leaves show a great variety of greens, ranging from yellowish to bluish color. Willows are among the earliest woody plants to leaf out in spring and the last to drop their leaves in autumn. In the northern hemisphere, leafout may occur as early as February depending on the climate and is stimulated by air temperature. If daytime highs reach 10 °C (50 °F) for a few consecutive days,

2914-690: The local gods. Many are now in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid but a representative sample is kept in the British Museum in London. Separating as it does the central part of Spain from the south of the peninsula, the Sierra Morena and its defiles have always had great military importance. The remains of a Roman road lead to the ruins of the castle of Castro Ferral  [ es ] (the name castro being

2976-487: The medicine sodium salicylate with acetyl chloride to produce acetylsalicylic acid for the first time. More than 40 years later in 1897, Felix Hoffmann created the same acid (in his case derived from the Spiraea plant), which was found in 1899 to have an analgesic effect. This acid was named " Aspirin " by Hoffmann's employer Bayer AG . The discovery of aspirin is therefore only indirectly connected to willow. In

3038-601: The musical instrument the organ . Los Órganos has status as a natural monument in its own right. Like the rest of the eastern Sierra Morena, the Despeñaperros is dominated by Mediterranean forest . Holm oak ( Quercus ilex ) and cork oak ( Quercus suber ) predominate, along with Portuguese oak ( Quercus faginea ), Pyrenean oak ( Quercus pyrenaica ) and various pines: stone pine ( Pinus pinea ), Aleppo pine ( Pinus halepensis ), and European black pine ( Pinus nigra ). The predominant shrubs are strawberry trees ( Arbutus unedo ), heather (genus Erica ), rockroses of

3100-479: The pass and its elevation above mean sea level . Apart from offering relatively easy travel between valleys, passes also provide a route between two mountain tops with a minimum of descent. As a result, it is common for tracks to meet at a pass; this often makes them convenient routes even when travelling between a summit and the valley floor. Passes traditionally were places for trade routes, communications, cultural exchange, military expeditions etc. A typical example

3162-470: The physician Hippocrates wrote about its medicinal properties in the fifth century BC. Interpreting Mesopotamian cuneiform texts is a challenge, especially when looking for something as specific as a species of plant being used to treat a recognisable condition. Some 5,000 medical prescriptions have been identified from Babylonian writings of the 7th to 3rd centuries BC, involving 1,300 drugs from 340 different plants. Whether any of these relate to willow

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3224-409: The plant. The leaves are typically elongated, but they might also be round to oval, frequently with serrated edges. Most species are deciduous ; semi- evergreen willows with coriaceous leaves are rare, e.g. Salix micans and S. australior in the eastern Mediterranean . All the buds are lateral; no absolutely terminal bud is ever formed. The buds are covered by a single scale. Usually,

3286-560: The prevailing theory, it took some 320 million years of the Variscan orogeny for the continental collision of Laurasia and Gondwana to crush the Armorican continent . In the strata of Armorican quartzite some spectacular ripples or crinkles are visible, fossil effects of waves , similar to those that can be observed in any deep, sandy sea, which reveals their origin. Trace fossils also remain of organisms that left their mark in

3348-454: The rest of Spain. Until the 1992 construction of the high-speed Puertollano – Córdoba route (90 kilometres (56 mi) to the west), this rail route was second in importance only to the Mérida – Seville line in terms of connecting from Andalusia to the rest of Spain. The Sierra de Despeñaperos is located at the eastern limit of the Sierra Morena. The mountain range is oriented east–west, but

3410-472: The sandy sediments during the Ordovician , almost 500 years ago. Among the formations visible in Despeñaperros are several that have been given names of their own: El Salto del Fraile ("Friar's Leap"), Las Correderas ("The Slides"), or Los Órganos ("The Organs"). In this last, the quartzite had been folded until it stood in vertical strata, which erosion then gave the forms of pointed tubes, evoking

3472-696: The similar bwlch (both being insular Celtic languages). In the Lake District of north-west England, the term hause is often used, although the term pass is also common—one distinction is that a pass can refer to a route, as well as the highest part thereof, while a hause is simply that highest part, often flattened somewhat into a high-level plateau. In Japan they are known as tōge , which means "pass" in Japanese. The word can also refer to narrow, winding roads that can be found in and around mountains and geographically similar areas, or specifically to

3534-444: The spitting of blood, and all other fluxes of blood", if boiled in wine and drunk, but adds a treatment for fever, saying: "the green boughs with the leaves may very well be brought into chambers and set about the beds of those that be sick of fevers, for they do mightily cool the heat of the air, which thing is a wonderful refreshing to the sick patients." In 1763, Reverend Edward Stone , of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, England, sent

3596-971: The willow lace bug, is a bug species in the family Tingidae found on willows in North America. Rhabdophaga rosaria is a type of gall found on willows. Rust , caused by fungi of genus Melampsora , is known to damage leaves of willows, covering them with orange spots. Some Native Americans allowed wildfires to burn and set fires intentionally, allowing new stands to form. A small number of willow species were widely planted in Australia, notably as erosion -control measures along watercourses. They are now regarded as invasive weeds which occupy extensive areas across southern Australia and are considered 'Weeds of National Significance'. Many catchment management authorities are removing and replacing them with native trees. Almost all willows take root very readily from cuttings or where broken branches lie on

3658-452: The world. They are used in hedges and landscaping. The high end shopping district of Ginza in Tokyo, Japan , has a long history of cultivating willow, and is well known for its willow lined streets. Willows are very cross-compatible, and numerous hybrids occur, both naturally and in cultivation. A well-known ornamental example is the weeping willow ( Salix × sepulcralis ), which

3720-616: Was a real effect or not is unknown, but although Stone's remedy was experimented with by others at the time, it was never adopted by medical practitioners. During the American Civil War , Confederate forces also experimented with willow as a cure for malaria, without success. In his novel The Mysterious Island (1875), the French novelist Jules Verne outlined the state of scientific knowledge concerning medicinal uses of willow when one of his characters, Herbert (Harbert) Brown,

3782-625: Was already used by the Romans for various types of willow. A theory is that the word is ultimately derived from a Celtic language , sal meaning 'near' and lis meaning 'water', alluding to their habitat. Willows are classified into subgenera though what they should be is in flux. Morphological studies generally divide the species into 3 or 5 subgenera: Salix (though some split off subgenera Longifoliae and Protitae ), Chamaetia , and Vetrix . Phylogenetic studies have suggested that Chamaetia and Vetrix be in one clade. The oldest fossils of

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3844-409: Was suffering from a fever induced by a bullet wound: "The bark of the willow has, indeed, been justly considered as a succedaneum for Peruvian bark, as has also that of the horse-chestnut tree, the leaf of the holly, the snake-root, etc.", he wrote. In the story, Herbert is treated with powdered willow bark to no effect, and is saved when a supply of quinine is discovered. It is clear in the novel that

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