36 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



ORDER SALIC ACE.ffi: WILLOW FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, simple, undivided and furnished with stipules, which are either 

 scale-like and deciduous, or leaf-like and persistent. Flowers dioecious, both kinds 

 in catkins, one under each bract or scale of the catkin, and destitute of both calyx 

 and corolla, or the former represented by a gland-like cup; ovary 1 to 2-celled; styles 

 wanting, or 2 and short; stigmas often 2-lobed. Fruit a 1 or 2-celled, 2-valved pod 

 with numerous seeds springing from 2 parietal or basal placentae and furnished with 

 long, silky down; seeds ascending, anatropous, without albumen; cotyledons flat. 



Trees or shrubs of rapid growth, light wood and bitter bark. 



GENUS SALIX, TODRN. 



Leaves generally narrow, long and pointed and usually with conspicuous stipules; 

 bud scales single. Flowers appearing before or with the leaves in terminal and lateral 

 cylindrical imbricated catkins, the scales or bracts of which are entire and each sab- 

 tending a flower which is without calyx and bears at its base 1 or 2 small nectiferous 

 glands. Sterile flowers with 2 (but sometimes more) distinct or united stamens. Fer- 

 tile flowers: ovary ovoid-lanceolate, taper-pointed; style short; stigmas 2, short and 

 mostly bifid. Fruit a 1-celled pod, dehiscent at maturity by two valves which roll 

 back at the summit to liberate the numerous minute coniose seeds. 



Trees and shrubs with lithe round branches and growing mostly along streams and 

 in moist localities. (Salix is from the Celtic sal, near and Us. water, alluding to the 

 favorite locality of the willows.) 



45. SALIX NIGRA, MARSHALL. 

 BLACK WILLOW. 



Ger., Scliwarze Weide ; Fr., 8aule noir ; Sp., Sauce negro. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. Leaves lanceolate and lance-linear, tapering at each end, 

 serrulate, green on both sides and smooth (when mature) excepting the midrib above 

 and the petiole which are tomentose; stipules small, dentate and caducous. Flowers 

 (May-June, with the leaves) in peduncled, long, loose, villous catkins, at the ends of 

 lateral leafy shoots of the season; scales rounded or oblong, greenish-yellow, wooly 

 and deciduous; glands large; stamens 3-6, hairy at base; ovary pedicellate, ovoid o*r 

 oblong, smooth; styles short; stigma 2-cleft. Fruit matures in June, an ovoid rather 

 long-pointed pod. 



A variety of this willow known as Var. falcata has elongated scythe-shaped leaves 

 and large, lunate, reflexed stipules. 



(Nigra is the Latin for black in allusion to the dark color of the bark of the trunk.) 



A small tree not often over 50 ft. (15 m.) in height or 18 inches 

 (0.45 m.) in diameter of trunk, and often a mere shrub, of pleasing 

 aspect owing to its pale yellow branches and bright green slender leaves. 

 Its branches are brittle at base but otherwise pliant and tough. The 

 bark of the trunk, especially near the base, is of a blackish gray color 

 and rough with longitudinal ridges. 



HABITAT. Canada and the Eastern and Central States to the gulf 

 coast, also found in the far west, California, Arizona, etc. , growing along 

 the banks of streams. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood very light, soft, close-grained and 

 easily worked, of a reddish-brown color with nearly white sap-wood. 

 Specific Gravity, 0.4456; Percentage of Ash, 0.70; Relative Approximate 



