PUSSY WILLOW (Scdix discolor, Muehl). Shrub to 25 feet. 

 Open, round-topped tree, or many-stemmed shrub, with as 

 cending branches and stout, red twigs, at first coated with 

 pale pubescence. Bark reddish brown, checked into irregular 

 plates with scaly surface. Wood light, soft, close-grained, 

 brown. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, tapering at both ends, 

 saw-toothed, thick, bright green, with pale or silvery lining, 

 3 to 5 inches long. Midribs broad, yellow. Petioles short, 

 slender; stipules leaf -like, half-moon-shaped, deciduous. Flow- 

 ers in erect, crowded spikes or catkins, with silky, silvery 

 tufts of hair between the scales. Appearing before the leaves. 

 in late winter or earliest spring. Fruit, bottle-shaped capsules, 

 pale pubescent, with minute seeds. Dist.: Common in wet 

 ground from Nova Scotia to Manitoba; south to Delaware 

 and Missouri. Cut and forced into bloom hi winter to supply 

 florist trade. 



