SALICACES. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 111 
SALIX AMYGDALOIDES. 
Peach Willow. Almond Willow. 
Leaves lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, pale and glaucous on the lower 
surface, long-stalked. 
Salix amygdaloides, Andersson, Ofvers. Vetensk. Akad. U. S. ix. 166. —Glatfelter, Rep. Missourt Bot. Gard. 
Férhandl. xv. 114 (Bidr. Nordam. Pilarter) (1858) ; v. 52, t. 1, £. 7; Science, n. ser. ii. 583. 
Proc. Am. Acad. iv. 53.— Walpers, Ann. v. 744.— Salix nigra amygdaloides, Andersson, Svensk. Vetensk. 
Bebb, Rothrock Wheeler's Rep. vi. 240; Coulter Man. Akad. Handl. ser. 4, vi. 21 (Monographia Salicum) 
Rocky Mt. Bot. 334; Watson & Coulter Gray’s Man. ed. (1867) ; De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 201. — Rothrock, 
6, 481.—Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census Pl. Wheeler, 50. — Porter & Coulter, FU. Colorado ; Hay- 
den’s Surv. Misc. Pub. No. 4, 128. 
A tree, sometimes sixty or seventy feet in height, with a single straight or slightly inclining trunk 
rarely more than two feet in diameter, and straight ascending branches ; or usually much smaller. The 
bark of the trunk is from one half to three quarters of an inch in thickness, brown somewhat tinged 
with red, and divided by irregular fissures into flat connected ridges separating on the surface into thick 
plate-like scales. The branchlets are slender, glabrous, marked with scattered pale lenticels and not 
easily separable at the joints; during their first season they are dark orange-color or red-brown and 
lustrous, becoming in the winter light orange-brown. The winter-buds are broadly ovate, gibbous, dark 
chestnut-brown and very lustrous above the middle, light orange-brown below, and one eighth of an 
inch long. The leaves are revolute in the bud, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, frequently falcate, wedge- 
shaped or gradually rounded and often unequal at the base, gradually or abruptly narrowed into long 
slender points at the apex, and finely serrate with minute obtuse gland-tipped teeth ; when they unfold 
they are slightly puberulous, especially below, and at maturity are thin and firm in texture, light green 
and lustrous on the upper surface and pale and glaucous on the lower, with stout yellow or orange-colored 
midribs impressed or raised on the upper side, prominent veins arcuate and connected near the margins, 
and conspicuous reticulate veinlets ; they are from two and a half to four inches long and from three 
quarters of an inch to an inch and a quarter wide, and are borne on elongated slender nearly terete 
petioles from one half to three quarters of an inch in length; or, on vigorous shoots, the leaves are 
often rounded or cordate at the base, eight or nine inches long and two inches wide ; those at the base 
of the branchlet are scale-like, ovate, acute, coated with long silky pale hairs, and caducous. The 
stipules are reniform, serrate with remote glandular teeth, frequently half an inch broad on vigorous 
shoots, and usually caducous. The flowers are borne on leafy branches in elongated cylindrical slender 
erect pedunculate pubescent or tomentose aments from two to three inches in length, the pistillate often 
becoming lax at maturity by the lengthening of the slender stalks of the capsules; their scales are 
yellow, sparingly villous on the outer and densely villous on the inner face, broadly ovate and rounded 
at the apex on the staminate ament, and oblong-obovate, narrower, and caducous on the pistillate. The 
stamens are usually from five to nine in number, with free filaments slightly hairy at the base. The 
ovary is oblong-conical, glabrous, long-stalked, and crowned by a short style divided into two stigmatic 
emarginate lobes. The capsule is globose-conical, light reddish yellow, and about a quarter of an inch 
in length. 
Salix amygdaloides inhabits the banks of streams and is distributed from the neighborhood of 
