SALICACEZ, 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 133 
SALIX DISCOLOR. 
Glaucous Willow. 
Leaves oblong, oblong-obovate, or lanceolate, glaucous or silvery white on the lower 
surface. 
Salix discolor, Muehlenberg, Newe Schrift. Gesell. Nat. 
Fr. Berlin, iv. 234, t. 6, £. 1 (1803); Konig & Sims 
Ann. Bot. ii. 62, t. 5, £. 1. — Willdenow, Spec. iv. pt. ii. 
665. — Persoon, Syn. ii. 599.— Wade, Salices, 76. — 
Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. ii. 613. — Poiret, Lam. Dict. Suppl. 
v. 56. — Nuttall, Gen. ii. 231. — Elliott, Sk. ii. 669. — 
Bigelow, Fl. Boston. ed. 2, 364. — Sprengel, Syst. i. 104. — 
Forbes, Salict. Woburn. 279. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. iii 
1530, 1630, £. 147. — Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 147. — 
Barratt, Sal. Amer. No. 3. — Torrey, Fl. N.Y. ii. 206. — 
son, Ofvers. Vetensk. Akad. Férhandl. xv. 123 (Bidr. 
Nordam. Pilarter); Proc. Am. Acad. iv. 63; Svensk. 
Vetensk. Akad. Handl. ser. 4, vi. 83, t. 5, £. 49 (Mono- 
graphia Salicum) ; De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. 225. — 
Walpers, Ann. v. 750. — Chapman, Fl. 430. — K. Koch, 
Dendr. ii. pt. 1. 570.— Sargent, Forest Trees N. Am. 
10th Census U. S. ix. 169. — Dudley, Bull. Cornell Uni- 
versity, ui. 89 (Cayuga Fl.). — Watson & Coulter, Gray’s 
Man. ed. 6, 482. — Dippel, Handb. Laubholzk. ii. 254, 
f. 116. — Koehne, Deutsche Dendr. 100. 
Emerson, Trees Mass. 258; ed. 2, i. 296, t. — Dietrich, 
Syn. v. 419. — Darlington, Fl. Cestr. ed. 3, 277. — Anders- 
Salix sensitiva, Barratt, Sal. Amer. No. 8 (1840). 
A tree, rarely exceeding twenty feet in height, with a trunk about a foot in diameter, and stout 
ascending branches which form an open round-topped head ; or more often shrubby, with numerous tall 
straggling stems. The bark of the trunk is a quarter of an inch in thickness, light brown tinged with 
red, and divided by shallow fissures into thin plate-like oblong scales which in falling disclose the dark 
brown inner bark. The branchlets are stout, marked with occasional orange-colored lenticels, dark 
reddish purple, and coated at first with pale deciduous pubescence. The buds are ovate, semiterete, 
flattened and acute at the apex, about three eighths of an inch long, dark reddish purple and lustrous. 
The leaves are convolute in the bud, oblong or oblong-obovate or rarely lanceolate, gradually narrowed 
at both ends, wedge-shaped at the base, acute and short-pointed at the apex, and remotely crenately 
serrate with minute incurved glandular teeth; when they unfold they are thin, light green often tinged 
with red, pubescent above and coated with pale tomentum below, and at maturity are thick and firm, 
glabrous, conspicuously reticulate-venulose, bright green on the upper surface and glaucous or silvery 
white on the lower, from three to five inches long and from three quarters of an inch to an inch and a 
half wide, with broad yellow midribs, slender arcuate primary veins, slightly thickened and revolute 
margins, and slender petioles from one half of an inch to an inch in length. The stipules are foliaceous, 
semilunate, acute, glandular-dentate, about a quarter of an inch in length, and deciduous. The aments 
are erect and terminal on abbreviated branches with leaves reduced to oblong acute deciduous scales 
and coated with thick white tomentum, and appear late in winter or in very early spring before the 
foliage ; they are oblong-cylindrical, about an inch long and two thirds of an inch thick, and those of 
the staminate plant, which are soft and silky before the flowers open, are densely flowered and often 
incurved above the middle; their scales are oblong-obovate, dark reddish brown above the middle, and 
clothed on the back with long silky silvery white hairs. The stamens are two in number, with 
elongated glabrous filaments. The ovary is oblong-cylindrical, attenuated above the middle, villous, 
long-stalked, and crowned by a short distinct style and broad spreading entire stigmas. The capsule 
is cylindrical, more or less contracted above the middle, long-pointed, light brown, and coated with pale 
pubescence. 
A form of this species in which the lower surface of the leaves is clothed with ferrugineous pubes- 
