32 THE BRITISH WILLOWS 



181. — S. cinerea x viminalis Camus, Monogr. 314. Seemen, 

 iv. 266. 



Icon. Forbes, Sal. Wob. tt. 128, 134. E. Bot. t. 1509. 

 Camus, Atlas, pi. 29, m-r. 



Exs. Leefe, Sal. Brit. exs. Nos. 25, 26; Sal. exs. iv. 89. 

 Billot, No. 461. Magnier, No. 2062. Wimmer, Sal. Eelict. (Herb. 

 Sal. 23, 87 ; Coll. Sal. 170, 173 (excl. b), 174, 175). E. E. & W. E. 

 Linton, No. 10. Toepffer, No. 124. 



A shrub, 6-12 ft. high, much branched, branchlets rather 

 thick torulose persistently pubescent, the wood under the peel 

 marked with the short striations of S. cinerea ; buds oval 

 pubescent. Stipules rather narrowly ^ -ovate-lanceolate subentire. 

 Leaf-blades 2-4^ in. long lanceolate or oblanceolate plane, crenate 

 or sometimes crenulate-serrate, dull green and pubescent above, 

 ashen-grey or glaucous, with silky pubescence + adpressed, 

 sooner or later glabrescent, beneath. Catkins 1-1| in. long in 

 flower in April, appearing before the leaves, subsessile with few 

 small leaves at the base ; bracts obovate usually broad and rounded 

 above, clothed with long silky hairs ; $ catkins ovate to ovate- 

 oblong ; 2 elongate to 2 in. or more, ovaries conic grey-green 

 pubescent ; pedicels at length about as long as the nectaries ; 

 styles moderate, as long or nearly as long as the stigmas. 



This hybrid is most easily confused with S. caprea x viminalis. 

 It may be distinguished by the rather less stout and persistently 

 pubescent twigs, the leaf-blades rather narrower and with the 

 under side less softly woolly-pubescent and more glabrescent ; 

 narrower and more entire stipules ; catkins not so stout ; and by 

 the presence of striae on the 1-2 year-old wood under the peel. 



If the name S. Smithiana Willd. were restricted to one definite 

 hybrid, it is perhaps this which should bear the name. Wimmer, 

 after first applying it to S. caprea x viminalis (Sal. Eur. 178), 

 has added in his account of S. cinerea x viminalis the remark, 

 " Nomen • S. Smithiana Willd.' hue potissimum ducendum esse 

 videtur " (/. c. p. 182). But there is much to justify Andersson in 

 regarding it as an aggregate name including all three of the allied 

 hybrids between S. viminalis and the Caprea. 



A reference to Smith's herbarium shows that S. aurita x 

 viminalis is also concerned. There are two sheets labelled 

 S. Smithiana ; one of these, from a Continental locality, is 

 8. aurita x viminalis ! the other, from " nr. Pennard Castle, 

 Glamorgan," is either the same hybrid, or else S. cinerea x 

 viminalis. Thus the combined evidence of Smith's plate and 

 description and specimens show's that S. Smithiana, according to 

 him, included the hybrids of S. viminalis with S. caprea, S. cinerea, 

 and S. aurita. 



Trustworthy records of this lowland willow are no doubt 

 deficient. It is known to occur in several counties from Dorset 

 and Kent, and from Glamorgan in the west, to W. Derbyshire and 

 S. Lancashire ; in Perthshire and Clackmannan ; in Kerry and 

 Leitrim, in Ireland. Europe : France, Germany, Denmark, 

 Scandinavia, Switzerland, Austria, Russia ; Turkestan, Siberia. 



