182 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



appearing early in February on short leafy branches, the staminate ly long and 

 nearly \' wide and rather longer than the more slender pistillate aments becoming 

 at maturity lax and 3' -4' long ; their scales oblong-obovate, light green, and clothed 

 on the outer surface with long straight silvery hairs; stamens 2, with elongated free 

 glabrous filaments; ovary cylindrical, short-stalked, beaked, glabrous, with a short 

 style and spreading entire or slightly emarginate stigmas. Fruit narrow, long- 

 pointed, light reddish brown, long-stalked. 



A tree, 40-50 high, with a tall straight trunk 10'-12' or rarely 18' in diameter, 

 rather slender upright slightly spreading branches forming a narrow open symmet- 

 rical head, and slender branchlets marked by small scattered orange-colored lenticels, 

 light green and coated during their first year with thick pale pubescence, becoming 

 reddish brown and glabrous or puberulous in their second winter. Winter-buds 

 ovate, rounded on the back, flattened or acute at the apex, reddish brown, hoary- 

 tomentose, nearly V long. Bark thin, smooth, light gray slightly tinged with red, 

 and covered with minute closely appressed plate-like scales. Wood dark red-brown, 

 with thin pale sapwood; durable, used for fence-posts. 



Distribution. Deep sandy alluvial bottom-lands of the Missouri River in western 

 Missouri, through northeastern Kansas, and from the neighborhood of St. Louis to 

 northwestern Iowa. 



** Capsule pubescent (glabrous in 19). 



~*-Leaves glabrous or nearly so at maturity (pubescent sometimes in 15). 



15. Salix discolor, Muehl. Glaucous Willo-w. 



Leaves convolute in the bud, oblong or oblong-obovate or rarely lanceolate, gradu- 

 ally narrowed at the ends, remotely crenulate-serrate, as they unfold thin, light 

 green often tinged with red, pubescent above and coated with pale tomentum below, 

 at maturity thick and firm, glabrous, conspicuously reticulate-venulose, bright green 

 above, glaucous or silvery white below, 3'-5' long, |'-1^' wide, with broad yellow 



midribs and slender arcuate primary veins; their petioles slender, ^'-1' long; stipules 

 foliaceous, semilunar, acute, glandular-dentate, about \' long, deciduous. Flowers : 

 aments appearing late in winter or in very early spring, erect, terminal on abbre- 



