38 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



71. SALIX AMYGDALOIDES, ANDERS, 

 PEACH WILLOW, PEACH-LEAVED WILLOW. 



Ger., Mandel-Weide; Fr., Saule de feuilles de pechej Sp., Sauce de hojas 



de almendra. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves lanceolate or ovate lanceolate, 2-4 inches in 

 length, with long tapering point, pale glaucous beneath, closely serrate; petioles 

 long and slender; stipules minute and caducous. Flowers rather remotely subver- 

 ticillate in the aments, which are leafy-peduncled, long-cyliudrical and pendulous; 

 scales of the fertile ament are crisp-villous inside and fall away early; style short 

 or obsolete; stigmas notched; scales of the sterile ament broader, ovate and crisp- 

 villous. Fruit, capsules, globose-conical, glabrous, long-pediceled, the ament bear- 

 ing them having become at maturity lax and 3-4 in. long, \ in. thick. 



(Amygdaloides is from the Greek af.ivyda.Xrj, the almond, and IvdoZ, appearance, 

 alluding to the resemblance in the leaves to those of the almond.) 



This willow rarely attains a greater size than 40 ft. (12 m.) in height 

 and 1 ft. (0.30 m. ) in diameter of trunk. Its bark is of a gray color, 

 rough with large, scaly, and loosely adherent ridges, very much resembling 

 the bark of the Black Willow. Its broad leaves as they flutter in the 

 wind and show successively their rich green upper surfaces and whitish 

 under surfaces give the tree a handsome and striking aspect. 



HABITAT. Central New York and westward to the Rocky Mountains; 

 more common in the west where it ranges from beyond our northern 

 border southward into New Mexico. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood light, soft, not strong, close-grained 

 and of cottony fiber. It is of a reddish-brown color with nearly white 

 sap-wood. /Specific Gravity, 0.4509 ; Percentage of Ash, 0.92; Relative 

 Approximate Fuel Value, 0.4408; Coefficient of Elasticity, 50144; Mo- 

 dulus of Rupture, 550; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 264; Re- 

 sistance to Indentation, 81; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 28.10. 



USES. Not generally known in commerce though the wood would 

 doubtless make excellent charcoal, and its cotton-like fiber would suggest 

 its value for paper pulp, though I am not aware that it has ever been 

 put to this use. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES which are common to the genus are found in 

 the bark and are readily yielded to water. A decoction of this is astrin- 

 gent and feebly tonic and used as a febrifuge in domestic practice. The 

 active principle is salicin, and it has been efficacious in the treatment of 

 rheumatism, and as an antiperiodic it appears to possess some controlling 

 influence over malarial disorders. Salicylic acid very valuable in medi- 

 cine and the arts can be derived from salicin, but at an expense so 

 much greater than with other known sources as to be impracticable.* 



U.S. Dispensary, 10th ed., p. 1316. 



