I have a very old, very large weeping willow tree in my back yard. There's a creek back there that provides it with plenty of water, and it being a full-size in-ground tree, my family has never really given it any extra care. I only recently got into bonsai, and have been considering from the very beginning to either save a few seedlings from the lawn mower or snip off a small branch from the base. Unfortunately, this past storm struck down one of the main trunks, (it used to split into four individual ones) revealing that the trunk is entirely rotted out. The species of willow is either salix alba or a hybrid between salix alba and salix fragilis. There are large, brown-grey plate growths on the trunk, (which have been there for some time) as well as tiny red shoots on the surface roots. Our neighbors are sad, as our house is near the entrance to the neighborhood and directly situated beside the pool, making our 40+ foot white willow a familiar icon of the area. I definitely want to save it if I can, but the entire trunk is filled with soft, rotted wood. So my question is this; is it safe to take seedlings and cuttings from this tree? Will they already be infected with whatever has struck our mighty icon down, or do we have a chance to, perhaps, save a piece of it?