SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. SALICACE. 
140 
they are about an inch and a half long, and those of the staminate plant are half an inch thick and 
nearly twice as thick as those of the pistillate plant, which, when the fruit ripens, are sometimes nearly 
three inches long; the scales are oblong-obovate, rounded or acute at the apex, dark colored, clothed 
with long crisp white hairs, and persistent under the fruit. The stamens are two in number, with 
elongated glabrous filaments more or less united below the middle. The ovary is narrow, cylindrical, 
acute and long-pointed, dark green, glabrous, and crowned by the short style and broad nearly sessile 
stigmas. The capsule is oblong, cylindrical, light reddish brown, about a quarter of an inch in length, 
and at the south ripens in March. 
Salix lasiolepis inhabits the banks of streams and low moist ground, and is distributed from the 
valley of the Klamath River southward through western California to Lower California,’ and to the 
mountains of southern Arizona.? It is the commonest and one of the most variable* of the California 
Willows, growing at the south and at low altitudes as a small or large tree, but in the north and on 
the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, which it ascends to elevations of three or four thousand feet 
above the sea, reduced to a low many-stemmed shrub.’ 
The wood of Salix lasiolepis is light, soft, close-grained, but not strong ; it contains numerous 
thin medullary rays, and is light brown, with thick nearly white sapwood. The specific gravity of the 
absolutely dry wood is 0.5587, a cubic foot weighing 34.82 pounds. 
used as fuel. 
In southern California it is often 
Salix lasiolepis was discovered near Monterey, California, by the German collector Hartweg® in 
1846, and near San Francisco in 1854° by Dr. J. M. Bigelow.’ 
1 Brandegee, Proc. Cal. Acad. ser. 2, ii. 205 (Pl. Baja Cal.). 
2 A shrubby form of Salix lasiolepis, with numerous stems eight 
or ten feet high, oblanceolate leaves gradually narrowed and wedge- 
shaped at the base, acute and occasionally rounded at the apex, 
mostly remotely and finely crenately serrate, especially above the 
middle, and pale silvery white and puberulous on the lower surface, 
was found in 1894 by Dr. T. S. Wilcox of the United States army 
in Tanner’s Cafion on the Huachuca Mountains in southern Arizona. 
It was also found by Professor J. W. Toumey in White River Cafion 
of the Chericahua Mountains in July, 1894. 
* In one of the ordinary forms of this species the leaves are ob- 
lanceolate or occasionally oblong-oblanceolate, acute or acuminate, 
more or less pubescent below, irregularly and unequally serrate, 
and subcoriaceous, those at the base of the aments being reduced 
to minute scales. In another form (var. Bigelovit, Bebb) the leaves 
are thinner, obovate or cuneate-obovate, often obtuse or rounded at 
the apex, and hoary-pubescent below, and the aments are raised 
on short leafy branchlets ; and in another (var. fallax, Bebb) the 
leaves are lanceolate-oblong, abruptly contracted and sometimes 
rounded at the base, and glaucous and pale below ; the stipules are 
larger, semilunar, and persistent, and the smaller aments are rather 
less densely flowered. 
* Salix lasiolepis is reported to be common on the banks of 
streams in the valley of Hatwai Creek, Nez Perces County, west- 
ern Idaho (Holzinger, Contrib. U. S. Nat. Herb. iii. 251). 
5 See ii. 34. 
8 Bigelow’s specimens are the types of Torrey’s Salix Bigelovii, 
published in the fourth volume of the Pacific Railroad Reports. 
The date on the title-page of this volume is 1856, but the introduc- 
tion, signed by Torrey, is dated January 12, 1857, and in his de- 
scription of other Willows in this Report reference is made to the 
fasciculus of the Plante Hartwegiane of Bentham which was pub- 
lished in London in 1857, and in which Salix lasiolepis was first 
described. Whatever may have been the real date of publication 
of the fourth volume of the Pacific Railroad Reports, it is evident 
that the portion of it in which the Willows are described did not 
appear until after the publication of the last fasciculus of the 
Plante Hartwegiane, and that Bentham’s name for this Willow is 
the older. 
7 See i. 88. 
EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
Puate CCCCLXXXI. Sax LASIOLEPIs. 
. A capsule, enlarged. 
ONAThR WN 
. A flowering branch of the staminate tree, natural size. 
. A staminate flower with its scale, front view, enlarged. 
. A flowering branch of the pistillate tree, natural size. 
. A pistillate flower, enlarged. 
A fruiting branch, natural size. 
. A summer branch, natural size. 
. A winter branch, natural size. 
