165. SALIX LASIOLEPIS CALIFORNIA WHITE WILLOW. 43 



ance to Longitudinal Pressure, 532; Resistance to Indentation, 188; 

 Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 41.77. 



USES. The wood is little if at all used, but the tree is occasionally 

 planted for decorative purposes. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES, though not reported of this particular 

 species, would probably be found to be the same as with other repre- 

 sentatives of the genus. Myrtle-Wax has been used as a remedy in 

 dysentery. The bark is acrid, astringent and stimulant, and has been 

 used in the treatment of diarrhoea, etc.* 



ORDER SALICACE-ZE : 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 bracht or scale of the catkin and destitute 

 of both catyx 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 two 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, TOURN. 



Leaves generally narrow, long and pointed and usually with conspicuous stip- 

 ules; bud scales single. Flowers appearing before or with the leaves in terminal 

 and lateral cylindrical, imbricated catkins, the scales or brachts of which are 

 entire and each subtending 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. Fertile flowers: ovary ovoid lanceolate, taper- 

 pointed; style short; stigmas 2, short and mostly bifid. Fruit a 1-celled pod, 

 dehiscent at niaturiiy by two valves which roll back to the summit to liberate 

 the numerous minute comose 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, allud- 

 ing to the favorite locality of the willows.) 



165. SALIX LASIOLEPIS, BEBB. 

 CALIFORNIA WHITE WILLOW, BIGELOW WILLOW. 



Ger., Calif ornische Weisse Weide; Fr., Saule Hanc de Calif ornie; 

 Sp., Sauce bianco de California. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves oblanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, the lower 

 sometimes spatulate, 3-6 in. long and |-1 in. wide, generally inequilateral or fal- 

 cate, acute, acuminate or occasionally rounded at apex, duneate at base, entire 

 or irregularly serrate with small callous teeth, tomentose at first, but finally 

 glabrous, dark-green above with impressed reticulations, paler and glabrous or 

 puberulous beneath, coriaceous, involute in vernation; petioles slender ^ to in. 

 in length; stipules mostly minute, tomentose and caducous, but sometimes 

 remaining on and foliaceous; leaf-buds ovate, acute, contracted laterally into 

 thin margins; branchlets tomentose first but finally glabrous. Flowers appear in 

 very early spring, before the leaves, in densely flowered sessile or subsessile 

 aments from 1| in. (the staminate) to 3 in. (the pistillate) long, with a few small 

 leaves or deciduous hairy bracts at base ; scales oblong obovate, rounded or acute 



* U. S. Diipensatory, 16th ed., p. 394, etc. 



