54 SALICACEAE 



often stand collaterally in pairs appressed to the stem. They 

 are one-sixteenth to ]/s inch long. 



The catkins are numerous and crowded, and appear in advance 

 of the leaves. They are small, broadly oblong, three-sixteenths 

 to ^ inch long, spreading, sessile or at the most short peduncled, 

 and without bracts. Pistillate catkins become ^ inch long in 

 fruit. The catkin scales are minute, reddish with reddish-brown 

 tips, and lanate-hairy. Staminate flowers have 2 stamens, the 

 filaments of which are free and glabrous, and pistillate flowers 

 have very short, entire styles capped by short, entire or divided 

 stigmas. The mature capsules are lanceolate-ampuliform, pu- 

 bescent, generally red tinted at the base, l/^ to five-sixteenths 

 inch long, and are raised on pedicels about one-sixteenth inch 

 high. 



Distribution. — The Dwarf Pussy Willow, which prefers 

 sandy uplands, roadsides, and thicket borders, ranges from 

 Massachusetts to North Dakota and south into Florida in 

 the east, Tennessee and Missouri, eastern Nebraska, and 

 South Dakota in the west. It should be found in suitable 

 situations throughout much of Illinois, although its occurrence 

 has been established only in Cook, Kankakee, Peoria and St. 

 Clair counties. 



SALIX SERICEA Marshall 



Silky Willow 



The Silky Willow, fig. 7, is a low shrub 3 to 8 feet tall, with 

 clustered stems and dark green leaves that are brightly silvered 

 beneath with close, silky hair. The narrowly lanceolate to 

 lanceolate leaf blades are 2 to 3 or, rarely, 4 inches long by 

 1/2 to ^ inch wide, acuminate at the tip, acute or rounded at 

 the base, dark green and puberulent to glabrous above, glaucous 

 and densely shiny-silvery pubescent beneath. The veinlets above 

 and below become finely netted in age, and the margins are 

 finely serrate. The petioles on which the leaves stand are slen- 

 der, 14 to ^ inch long, light to dark brown, and puberulent to 

 glabrous. The linear-lanceolate to semicordate, usually early 

 deciduous, stipules are glaucous beneath and have serrate mar- 

 gins. The slender, terete twigs range from light to dark brown, 

 and from puberulent to glabrous. They bear blunt, ovate, 

 flattened or plump, reddish-brown, appressed buds that are 



