22 THE BRITISH WILLOWS 



Leicester ; near Southport, Lancashire (as var. pomeranica = S. 

 pomeranica Willd. Enum. PL Hort. Berol. Suppl. 1813, 66, a form 

 with narrower leaves and more slender catkins) ; Perthshire. 

 Europe: France, Scandinavia, Italy, Russia, Siberia; Central 

 Asia.] 



v. Purpurea. 



5. Salix purpurea L. Sp. PL 1017. Sm. Fl. Brit. iii. 1039 ; Engl. 

 Fl iv. 187. Wade, Essay, 127. Wimmer, Sal. Eur. 29. Anderss. 

 DC. Prodr. xvi. (2), 306. Syme, E. B. viii. 217. B. White, 

 Revision, 447. Camus, Monogr. 98. — S. Lambertiana Sm. Fl. 

 Brit. iii. 1041. 



Icon. Hoffm. Hist. Sal. t. 1 ; t. 5, f. 1 ; t. 23, f. 1. E. Bot. 

 t. 1343, 1388. Forbes, Sal. Wob. t. 1, 3. Camus, Atlas PL 7.— 

 S. Lambertiana Sm. E. Bot. 1. 1359.— S. Woolgariana Bow. E.B.S. 

 t. 2651. 



Exs. Hb. Linn. No. 17 (1, 2), 17 (f, g), 18, 19, 20. Leefe, 

 Sal. Brit. exs. Nos. 11, 12, 13, 75, 76. Magnier, No. 3356. E. F. & 

 W R. Linton, Nos. 34, 80; and No. 5 (var. Woolgariana). 

 Toepffer, Nos. 36, 37, 48, 49, 137. 



A shrub 4-10 ft. high, glabrous, or very nearly so, with straight 

 tough branches often purplish at first, then grey or olive-grey, 

 smooth, rather shining ; buds oblong pointed. Stipules small 

 narrow oblong, rather scarious, soon deciduous, seldom found. 

 Leaf-blades 2-4 in. long, often opposite towards the top of the 

 branchlets, broadly or narrowly oblanceolate, less commonly 

 oblong-obovate, acute or acuminate, attenuate-cuneate at the 

 base, finely and acutely serrate in the upper part, dull green 

 above, pale or glaucous green beneath, coriaceous, glabrous (or 

 pubescent just at first) ; turning black when being dried. Catkins 

 |— \\ in. long, preceding the leaves in March or April, subsessile 

 with a few small leaves at the base, slender, erect then often 

 spreading or recurved, dense-flowered ; bracts obovate rounded 

 above almost villous, reddish below the blackened tip, persistent ; 

 filaments adnate, woolly-pilose at the base, anthers 4-lobed having 

 four chambers, purple or reddish ; ovaries broadly ovoid, obtuse, 

 tomentose, sessile or subsessile, stigmas also sessile or subsessile, 

 short, thick, spreading, usually not divided and often with a 

 purple tinge. 



British botanists in the past restricted S. purpurea to the 

 narrower-leaved form with spreading or ascending branches and 

 slender catkins, and distinguished two forms of robuster and more 

 upright growth and broader foliage, viz. var. Woolgariana (S. 

 Woolgariana Borr. I.e.) with yellowish twigs and broadly cuneate- 

 obovate leaves ; and var. Lambertiana (S. Lambertiana Sm. I. c.) 

 witli purplish twigs and leaf-blades broadly oblong, slightly 

 enlarged upwards from the broad base. But these forms shade 

 into one another in nature, and are of little use unless for 

 classifying specimens in the herbarium by the breadth and shape 

 of the leaf, and have latterly been regarded only as synonyms of 

 the species S. purpurea. 



