THE WILLOWS OF OHIO. 289 
seven years I have been continually on the lookout for it but 
have seen less than half a dozen individuals which were not 
clearly planted. One of these was on the Hocking River near 
Sugar Grove; the others were along the lake shore in Ashtabula 
county. 
In Europe Salix babylonica hybridises freely with S. fragilis. 
But in this country the manuals have not included such a cross. 
A single plant was discovered at Sandusky during the season of 
1903. * The leaves and habit were so exactly intermediate be- 
* ween the two that there could be no doubt of its identity. 
At Ashtabula was found a plant which from leaf and habit 
I take to be a hybrid between the present species and Salix alba, 
which is not reported in the manuals. 
LONGIFOLIAE, THE LONG-LEAVED WILLOWS. 
The longifoliae comprise a very distinct and compact group 
of American willows. They have no close affinities with any 
other group and do not intermingle with any. They have two 
stamens (a specimen in the Ohio herbarium has three) and light 
one-colored deciduous scales which show their relationship with 
both the polyandrous and diandrous willows. Within the group 
the many described species are difficult to recognize; Bebb, him- 
self, said after he had described two or three of them that he did 
not know but what they were all one species after all. The group 
is very easily recognized by the venation of the leaves which is 
different from any other willow and much resembles that of many 
Onagaraceae, for example the fire weed. There is typically a 
prominent marginal vein running clear round the leaf, connected 
with the midrib by a series of distant nearly straight primaries be- 
tween which there are practically no secondaries and no mesh- 
work, only a few costals running parallel to the primaries. But 
in young leaves the veins ascend at a much sharper angle and 
the marginal vein is not so prominent while the secondaries and 
tertiaries have not yet faded from view so that the above descrip- 
tion will not hold. The leaves in some of the species are very 
long and sometimes so narrow that it is difficult to find any veins 
at all. 
* Ohio Nat. 4:13 Nov. 1903. 
Plate VI. Salix longipes (left) and Salix babylonica (right). 
Typical specimens natural size; capsules enlarged three times. 
