There’s a type of willow used traditionally in Iran to make a fragrant beverage. In Farsi, it’s called bid, and I think it’s also known as musk willow. I need to know what the species is, and I wonder if it will grow in the Seattle area.
Most sources I consulted confirm that musk willow or bid is Salix aegyptiaca. Encyclopaedia Iranica says “bid” is a general term for the genus Salix, but does identify “musk willow” as Salix aegyptiaca. The online version of W.J. Bean’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs: Temperate Woody Plants in Cultivation says the following:
“Native of S.E. Anatolia, S.E. Transcaucasia and N. Persia; introduced to the Botanic Garden at Innsbruck in 1874 by Dr Polak, doctor to the Shah of Persia, and in cultivation at Kew five years later. At one time a perfumed drink was made in Moslem lands from its male catkins, which were also sugared and eaten as a sweetmeat, and used for perfuming linen. For these it was cultivated from Egypt to Kashmir and central Asia, so the epithet aegyptiaca is not so inappropriate as it would otherwise seem to be.”
Salix aegyptiaca is featured in the February 2016 issue of the Royal Horticultural Society’s publication, The Garden in an article entitled “Willow the wish” by David Jewell. Since the article recommends it for gardens in England, where the climate is similar to ours here in the Pacific Northwest, it will probably thrive here in Seattle as well.