SALICACER, SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 147 
SALIX HOOKERIANA. 
Willow. 
Leaves oblong or oblong-obovate, yellow-green and glabrous or tomentose on the 
upper surface, pale or glaucous and tomentose on the lower. 
Salix Hookeriana, Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 145, t. 180 274.— Walpers, Ann. v. 747. — Sargent, Forest Trees 
(excl. hab. Saskatchewan) (1839). — Nuttall, Sylva, i. N. Am. 10th Census U. 8S. ix. 170 (excl. hab. Sas- 
64. — Andersson, Ofvers. Vetensk. Akad. Férhandl. xv. katchewan).— Bebb, Bot. Gazette, xiv. 52. — Dippel, 
119 (Bidr. Nordam. Pilarter) (excl. hab. Saskatchewan) ; Handb. Laubholzk. ii. 303, £. 142. — Koehne, Deutsche 
Proc. Am. Acad. iv. 59; De Candolle Prodr. xvi. pt. ii. Dendr. 93. 
A tree, occasionally thirty feet in height, with a trunk a foot in diameter; more often shrubby, 
with numerous stems from four to eight inches thick and fifteen or twenty feet high ; and frequently a 
low bush, with straggling almost prostrate stems. The bark of the trunk is nearly an eighth of an inch 
in thickness, light red-brown, slightly fissured, and divided into closely appressed plate-like scales. The 
branchlets are stout, marked with large scattered orange-colored lenticels, covered during their first 
season with thick hoary tomentum, and rather bright or dark reddish brown and pubescent in their 
second summer. The buds are ovate, acute, nearly terete, dark red, coated with pale pubescence, and 
about a quarter of an inch in length. The leaves are oblong or oblong-obovate, gradually narrowed 
and wedge-shaped or rounded at the base, acute or abruptly acuminate with short points or rarely 
rounded and frequently apiculate at the apex, and coarsely crenately serrate, especially those on vigorous 
shoots, or often entire ; when they unfold they are villous with pale hairs or tomentose above and clothed 
below with thick silvery white tomentum, and at maturity they are thin and firm in texture, bright 
yellow-green and lustrous on the upper surface, which is glabrous with the exception of the pubescence 
on the stout midribs or rarely is coated until after midsummer with loose cobweb-like tomentum, and 
pale and glaucous on the lower surface, which is tomentose or pubescent, especially along the midribs, 
the slender arcuate and united primary veins, and the conspicuous reticulate veinlets ; they are from 
two to six inches long and from an inch to an inch and a half wide, with stout tomentose petioles from 
one quarter to three quarters of an inch in length; those of the first pair are ovate or oblong-obovate, 
green and nearly glabrous on the upper surface, and covered on the lower with long white silky hairs 
which also form a conspicuous fringe on their margins. The aments, which appear in April, are oblong- 
cylindrical, erect, rather lax, often more or less curved, and are borne on short tomentose branchlets 
furnished with obovate acute leaves coated, especially below and along the margins, with long white or 
rufous hairs, and from one half to three quarters of an inch in length ; they are about an inch and a half 
long, and those of the staminate plant are two thirds of an inch thick, and rather thicker than those of 
the pistillate plant, which when the capsules mature are often two and a half inches long ; their scales 
are oblong-obovate, yellow, and coated with long pale hairs, those of the staminate ament being rounded 
above and rather broader than the more acute scales of the pistillate ament, which are persistent under 
the fruit. The stamens are two in number, with free elongated glabrous filaments. The ovary is 
conical, gradually narrowed above, glabrous, crowned by a slender elongated bright red style and broad 
spreading entire stigmas, and is raised on a slender stem about a third as long as the scale. The cap- 
sule is oblong-cylindrical, narrowed above, and about a quarter of an inch in length. 
Salix Hookeriana mhabits the borders of salt-water marshes and ponds, and sandy coast-dunes, 
and is distributed from Vancouver’s Island southward along the shores of Puget Sound and the Pacific 
Ocean to southern Oregon. 
