THE BLACK WILLOW 



THE Black Willow is distributed over practically the entire eastern region of North 

 America, extending from New Brunswick to Florida and from the Atlantic 

 coast to Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, and even into parts of California. It attains 

 its largest size in the Mississippi Valley, where it is the most abundant of the tree-like 

 Willows, sometimes reaching a height of more than a hundred feet and a trunk diameter 

 of two or three feet. As in the case of the other Willows, it is especially likely to be found 

 along the banks of streams or the margins of ponds and lakes. It is generally to be dis- 

 tinguished by its long, slender, narrowly-pointed leaves with their finely serrate margins, 

 and the shining yellow-green color of both surfaces of the blades, the under surface being 

 somewhat paler than the upper. Frequently the leaf is bent in a slightly sickle fashion. 

 At the base of the rather short petiole there is a pair of rounded stipules that clasp the 

 twig. These stipules are very characteristic, and are well shown in the accompanying plate. 

 The Black Willow blossoms rather late in spring but before the leaves have reached 

 their full size, the latter appearing later than the leaves of the other Willows. The pollen- 

 bearing and the seed-bearing catkins are upon separate trees, the former being shown on 

 the extreme left of the pictures in the plate while the latter are shown in the adjoining 

 illustration. The plant depends upon bees and other insects to carry the pollen from one 

 kind of catkin to the other, secreting for this purpose an abundant supply of nectar and 

 advertising it by the distinctive odor as well as by the rather conspicuous colors of the 

 pollen-bearing catkins. In a very few weeks the cottony seeds are shed by the small 

 capsules and are scattered far and wide by wind and water. According to the fine obser- 

 vation of Thoreau many of the latter "drift and form a thick white scum together with 

 other matter, especially against some Alder or other fallen or drooping shrub where there 

 is less current than usual. There within two or three days a great many germinate and 

 show their two little roundish leaves, more or less tingeing with green the surface of the 

 scum, somewhat like grass-seed in a tumbler of cotton. Many of these are drifted in among 

 the button bushes, willows and other shrubs and the sedge along the river side, and the 

 water falling just at this time when they have put forth little fibres they are deposited on 

 the mud just left bare in the shade, and thus probably a great many of them have a chance 

 to become perfect plants. " Like the other willows this species probably reproduces even 

 more frequently from twigs lodged along the banks of streams. 



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