124 SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. SALICACEE. 
The ovary is oblong-cylindrical, acute, short-stalked, glabrous or covered with silky pubescence, and 
crowned with the large sessile deeply lobed stigmas. The capsule is light red-brown, glabrous or 
villous, and about a quarter of an inch long. 
Salix fluviatilis is distributed from the shores of Lake St. John’ and the Island of Orleans 
in the province of Quebec southward through western New England to the valley of the Potomac 
River ; it ranges northwestward to points within the Arctic Circle in the valley of the Mackenzie 
River, across the continent to British Columbia? and California, and southward through the basin 
of the Mississippi River to northern Mexico and Lower California.’ An inhabitant of river banks, 
the Sand-bar Willow is the first tree or shrub in all the northern interior region of the continent 
which springs up on the newly formed sand-bars and banks of rivers, consolidating them with its long 
rigid roots and helping to build them up with the mud retained on the surface by its flexible crowded 
stems, and so prepares them for the growth of the Poplars which line the banks of western and northern 
streams. Exceedingly common in the basin of the Mississippi River, where it probably reaches its largest 
size in southern Indiana and Illinois,* Salix fluviatilis gradually becomes smaller and more rare as it 
approaches the Atlantic seaboard; it is abundant in all the prairie regions of British America and 
lines the banks of streams flowing eastward through the central plateau of the continent, where it is 
the commonest Willow, as it is in the arid regions immediately west of the Rocky Mountains; in 
Texas it is abundant as far west as the valley of the Pecos River, but is rare in the territory south 
of the Colorado plateau, in New Mexico and Arizona. It reappears west of the Colorado Desert in 
southern California, and is not rare in all the region adjacent to the Pacific coast from Lower California 
to northern British Columbia. 
Salix fluviatilis, var. argyrophylla,> which is distributed from western Texas to northern California, 
has leaves and capsules clothed with lustrous silky pale tomentum ; and in the variety exigua® of the 
same region the leaves are linear, two or three inches long and often not more than a third of an inch 
wide. 
The wood of Salix fluviatilis is light, soft, and very close-grained ; it is light brown tinged with 
red, with thin light brown sapwood, and contains numerous obscure medullary rays. The specific 
gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4930, a cubic foot weighing 30.72 pounds. The wood of the 
variety exigua is rather heavier and darker in color, with a specific gravity of 0.5342, a cubic foot 
weighing 33.29 pounds. 
1 Salix fluviatilis was collected in August, 1894, by Mr. J. G. 
Jack on the shores of Lake St. John. 
* Provancher, Flore Canadienne, ii. 531.—Macoun, Cat. Can. 
Pi. 450. 
128. —Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census U.S. ix. 168. — 
Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. 450. — Coulter, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 
ii. 419 (Man. Pl. W. Texas). — Coville, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. 
iv. 199 (Bot. Death Valley Exped.). 
8 Brandegee, Proc. Cal. Acad. ser. 2, ii. 205 (Pl. Baja Cal.). 
4 Ridgway, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. xvii. 414. 
5 Salix fluviatilis, var. argyrophylla. 
Salix argyrophylla, Nuttall, Sylva, i. 71, t. 20 (1842). 
Saliz longifolia argyrophylla, Andersson, Svensk. Vetensk. Akad. 
Handl. ser. 4, vi. 55 (Monographia Salicum) (1867) ; De Candoile 
Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 214. — Watson, King’s Rep. v. 324. — Bebb, 
Rothrock Pl. Wheeler, 50; Brewer & Watson Bot. Cal. ii. 85. — 
Porter & Coulter, Fl. Colorado ; Hayden’s Surv. Misc. Pub. No. 4, 
Saliz longifolia opaca, Andersson, Svensk. Vetensk. Akad. Handl. 
l. c. (1867). 
& Salix fluviatilis, var. exigua. 
Salix exigua, Nuttall, Sylva, i. 75 (1842). 
Salix longifolia angustissima, Andersson, Ofvers. Vetensk. Akad. 
Férhandl. xv. 116 (Bidr. Nordam. Pilarter) (1858) ; Proc. Am. 
Acad. iv. 56. 
Salix longifolia, var. exigua, Bebb, Brewer & Watson |. c. 
(1880). — Sargent, J. c. — Coulter, J. c. — Coville, 2. ¢. 
