SALICACEZ. SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 127 
SALIX SESSILIFOLIA. 
Willow. 
LEAVEs lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, villous on the lower surface with lustrous 
pale hairs. 
Salix sessilifolia, Nuttall, Sylva, i. 68 (1842). — Anders- 
son, Ofvers. Vetensk. Akad. Férhandl. xv. 116 (Bidr. 
Nordam. Pilarter); Proc. Am. Acad. iv. 56; Svensk. 
Vetensk. Akad. Handl. ser. 4, vi. 55, t. 4, £. 36 (Monogra- 
phia Salicum); De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 214.— 
Walpers, Ann. v. 746.— Bebb, Brewer & Watson Bot. 
Cal. ii. 85. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census 
U. S. ix. 168. — Mayr, Wald. Nordam. 288. 
Salix Hindsiana, Bentham, Pl. Hartweg. 335 (1857). — 
Torrey, Pacific R. R. Rep. iv. pt. v. 188. — Andersson, 
Svensk. Vetensk. Akad. Handl. ser. 4, vi. 56, t. 4, £. 37 
(Monographia Salicum); De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. i. 
215. — Walpers, Ann. v. 746. 
Salix sessilifolia Hindsiana, Andersson, Ofvers. Vetensk. 
Akad. Férhandl. xv. 117 (Bidr. Nordam. Pilarter) (1858); 
Proc. Am. Acad. iv. 56.— Bebb, Brewer & Watson Bot. 
Cal. ii. 85. — Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 10th Census 
U. S. ix. 169. 
Salix Hindsiana tenuifolia, Andersson, Svensk. Vetensk. 
Akad. Handl. ser. 4, vi. 56 (Monographia Salicum) 
(1867) ; De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 215. 
Salix sessilifolia, 8 villosa, Andersson, De Candolle 
Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 215 (1868). 
A tree, occasionally thirty feet in height, with a trunk a foot in diameter, and slender erect branches 
forming a narrow head; or often, especially at the south, reduced to a tall or a low shrub. The bark 
of the trunk is nearly half an inch in thickness, dark brown, slightly fissured, and covered with thick 
irregular closely appressed scales. The branchlets are slender, coated at first with hoary pubescence 
The buds 
are narrow, ovate, acute, and nearly an eighth of an inch long. The leaves are involute in the bud, 
which gradually disappears during the summer, and are afterward rather reddish brown. 
lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, often slightly falcate, narrowed at both ends, long-pointed at the apex, 
and entire or dentate above the middle with spreading remote rigid glandular teeth ; when they unfold 
they are covered with hoary tomentum, which is thickest below, and at maturity are light yellow-green, 
glabrous or puberulous on the upper surface, villous on the lower with silky lustrous white hairs, from 
an inch and a half to five inches long and from one twelfth to one quarter of an inch wide, with yellow 
midribs, obscure arcuate veins, and stout pubescent petioles rarely more than an eighth of an inch in 
length. The stipules are acute, hoary-pubescent, about a quarter of an inch long, and deciduous. The 
aments are cylindrical, densely flowered, terminal and axillary on leafy branches, about three inches in 
length on the pistillate plant and hardly more than half as long but broader on the staminate; their 
scales are oblong-obovate, pale yellow-green and villous on the back with pale silky hairs, those of the 
staminate being rather broader than those of the pistillate ament, and erose or denticulate above the 
middle. The stamens are two in number, with free glabrous filaments. The ovary is oblong-cylindrical, 
short-stalked, villous, and crowned with the nearly sessile bifid stigma. The capsule is elongated, cylin- 
drical, short-stalked, bright red brown, more or less villous, and about a quarter of an inch in length.’ 
Salix sessilifolia inhabits the banks of streams, and is distributed from the shores of Puget Sound 
1 Saliz sesstlifolia, which is still very imperfectly known, is here 
treated as a species, although it is not always easy to distinguish it 
Indeed, constant characters by means of which the purely Ameri- 
can and well marked group of Longiflore can be satisfactorily di- 
from the variety argyrophylla of Salix fluviatilis, and it might per- 
haps with equal reason be considered one of the numerous forms of 
that variable species. The linear lobes of the stigmas which are 
sometimes found in Saliz sessilifolia and have been used to distin- 
guish it have little specific significance and cannot be relied upon. 
vided into species cannot be defined, and, although for the sake of 
convenience the principal forms are usually considered specifically 
distinct, they can with equal reason be grouped under a single spe- 
cies. (See Bebb, Bot. Gazette, xvi. 103.) 
