WILLOWS. JUNIPERS 227 



(b) Independent shrubs or bushes, not climbing on, 

 nor supported by, other plants. 



(i) Prostrate and creeping on the ground, or [For (ii) 

 partially buried and rooting at the nodes. 



(a) A partially buried and rooting creeper, 

 with deep red-brown twigs, and densely 

 silky white shoots, and lanceolate deciduous 

 leaves. Flowers in catkins. Fruits minute 

 capsules ; seeds comose. 



Salix repens, L. Creeping Willow. The half-buried 

 stems root at the nodes, and the erect shoots may ascend 

 to 1 2 feet : old plants may be somewhat bushy and up 

 to 8 10 feet. Shoots thin and hairy ; branches red or 

 purple-brown or more or less olive, yellowish, and smooth 

 polished. 



There are half-a-dozen other dwarf Willows of similar 

 habit, belonging to the Alpine or Arctic floras, occurring 

 as more or less rare plants in the Highlands e.g. S. re- 

 ticulata with more or less angular, yellow-green to pale 

 brown polished twigs, and rounded leaves : S. Lapponum 

 and S. lanata with the older branches terete and yellow- 

 brown and with the shoots very silky or cottony : S. 

 Myrsinites, not truly creeping but procumbent : and S. 

 herbacea, the smallest British shrub, only a couple of 

 inches or so high. 



(ft) Prostrate, but not rooting, wiry shrub, 

 ^vith evergreen spine-like leaves in whorls 

 of three, bearing small cones which ripen 

 to blue-black glaucous fleshy " berries." 



Juniperus communis, L. Juniper [in most cases J. 

 communis, var. nana, the Dwarf Juniper]. 



Juniperus communis (Fig. 114) may be a dense 

 spreading bush 3 5 feet high, or even a small tree up 



152 



