THE WILLOWS OF OHIO. 285. 
SALIX ALBA L. WHITE WILLow. 
A tree attaining a maximum height of 30 m. with a trunk 
diameter of 2.5m. Like Salix fragilis often growing in clumps 
but when single-stemmed it is taller and more slender and has 
the trunk continued as a central shaft to near the top. It is not 
clean like that species but is covered with a brush of suckers. 
Bark of the twigs and branches yellowish green varying to yellow; 
winter buds smaller (4 mm. long) than those of the crack willow, 
oblong and well filled out. The leaves reach a length of 13 cm. 
and a breadth of 3 cm., lanceolate, acute, narrowed to the base, 
closely and finely serrate, sometimes almost entire, grayish or 
bluish glaucous, pubescent on both surfaces at least till mature, 
(hair mostly persistent below) with close, fine, appressed, parallel, 
gray hairs, stipules deciduous; primary veins close (closer than in 
S. fragilis), straight, ascending, regular, extending to the margin 
without branching, secondaries conspicuously regular but often 
forking like the letter Y. Catkins on lateral branches or some- 
times supported only by bracts, scales hirsute, deciduous, cap- 
sules ovate-conic, not more than 4 mm. long, greenish yellow in 
fruit, obtuse, glabrous, pedicel very short, style short, stigmas 
thick. 
Salix alba is a European species planted in this country for 
the same purposes as S. fragilis. In most parts of the state it 
does not seem to escape so readily as that species and hence is not 
quite as common but may be found planted almost anywhere. 
As stated above, most observers have considerable difficulty 
in separating this species from the preceding. The difficulty is 
often assigned to their hybridising propensities. But in Ohio at 
least hybrids are rather rare. I have found that the two species 
are distinct and separable in nearly all cases though it was only 
after long study that the ability to distinguish them was acquired. 
The manuals state that the species in the typical form is rare in 
this country, the majority of the American forms being the golden 
osier (var. vitellina). It is certainly true that few of our plants 
are the typical hairy plant of Linneus but study of the European 
material at Washington leads me to the conclusion that in Europe 
the typical form is about as scarce as here. Further the extreme- 
ly bright yellow twigs and glabrous, half shiny leaves of the typi- 
cal varietal form are scarcer in this country than the pure alba 
forms. It seems to me good practice in a series of intergrading 
forms to draw the line between species and variety close to the 
variety and to call all but nearly typical varietal forms the species 
simply, if for no other reason to avoid the use of a trinomial. 
The variety vitellina then, of Salix alba includes those plants 
with bright golden yellow twigs and branches, and leaves soon 
glabrous and bright green. 
