Q 01/05

Which sports implement is traditionally made of white willow, a light wood that resists denting?

A) Cricket bat

B) Baseball bat

C) Snooker cue

D) Lacrosse stick

Answer · why

A) Cricket bat

The cricket bat has a blade cut from a fast-growing variety of white willow, chosen because it neither dents much nor splinters when a hard ball hits ...

Q 02/05

A compound first found in willow bark was the chemical forerunner of which painkiller launched by Bayer?

A) Ibuprofen

B) Aspirin

C) Paracetamol

D) Morphine

Answer · why

B) Aspirin

Aspirin takes its name not from willow but from Spiraea, the old botanical name of meadowsweet, another plant that yields the same kind of compound.

Q 03/05

Which Disney animated film features Grandmother Willow, a talking tree who advises its young heroine?

A) Mulan

B) Moana

C) Pocahontas

D) Brave

Answer · why

C) Pocahontas

Pocahontas turns to Grandmother Willow in times of doubt; Linda Hunt voiced the tree, which grew out of a concept sketch of a sawn-off trunk.

Q 04/05

In the Harry Potter stories, a secret tunnel beneath the Whomping Willow leads to which building in Hogsmeade?

A) Honeydukes

B) The Hog's Head

C) Shrieking Shack

D) Zonko's Joke Shop

Answer · why

C) Shrieking Shack

The Shrieking Shack hid the young werewolf Remus Lupin during his monthly transformations, and the howling that villagers heard gave the house its fea...

Q 05/05

Despite a scientific name pointing to Babylon, the weeping willow first came from the north of which Asian country?

A) India

B) Turkey

C) China

D) Iran

Answer · why

C) China

China is the weeping willow's homeland; traders carried it west along the Silk Road, and it reached England from Aleppo in Syria in 1730.