50 HOUGH'S AMERICAN WOODS. 



193. SALIX NUTTALLII, SARG.* 

 NUTTALL WILLOW. 



Ger., Weide von Nuttall; Fr., Saule de Nuttall ; Sp., Sauce de 



Nuttall. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS : Leaves involute in the bud, oblong-obovate, generally 

 H-4 in. long, acute or abruptly acuminate or, particularly the lowermost, 

 rounded at apex, wedge-shaped at base, entire or remotely and irregularly serrate 

 or crenate-serrate, pilose and pale pubescent at first, but at maturity 'lustrous 

 dark yellow-green above, pubescent along the broad midribs, pale and glabrous 

 or puberulous to pilose beneath ; petioles | to | in. in length : stipules foliacious, 

 semilunar, glandular-serrate, mostly caducous ; branchlets pale pubescent at first, 

 sometimes continuing until mid-summer or longer. Flowers appear in early 

 spring, before the leaves, in oblong-cylindrical erect nearly sessile anients, on short 

 tomentose branchlets bearing two or three silky white tomentose scale-like leaves. 

 Staminate catkins about 1 in. long, pistillate catkins H in. long and rather lax. 

 but becoming 2-3 in. long at muturity ; scales oblong, "dark colored, coated with 

 long silky white hairs and persistent in the fruit ; stamens 2, with free glabrous 

 filaments ; ovary long-pointed, hoary pubescent, raised on a short stalk about 

 one-third as long as the scale and crowned with the nearly sessile, broad, emar- 

 ginate stigmas, the style obsolete. Fruit an ovate-lanceolate pale-pubescent cap- 

 sule, about ^ in. long. 



Salix Nuttallii, var. brachystachys, Sarg., is the name given to the representa- 

 tives of this species in the Pacific Coast region, from Alaska to Santa Barbara, 

 which differ mainly from the typical form as above described in having shorter 

 and more curved pistillate aments. The branchlets, etc., are often copiously 

 clothed with silky pale tomentum the first season and it may persist during the 

 second season. 



The species is named in compliment to Thos. Nuttall who discovered and 

 first described it as S. flavascens, a name not now considered tenable. 



The Nuttall Willow is a small tree, and often only a shrub of but a 

 few feet in height. Occasionally it attains the height of 50 or 60 ft. 

 (17 m.) with erect or reclining trunk 2 ft. (0.60 m.) or less in diameter 

 with contorted branches and drooping branchlets, and when growing 

 in the open forming a rounded top. The bark of trunk is of a light 

 gray color checked into irregular plate-like scales. When they flake 

 off it is of a reddish brown color with flat fibrous ridges. 



HABITAT. The Nuttall Willow is distributed from southern 

 British Columbia and Alberta southward along the banks of Rocky 

 Mountain streams to New Mexico and Arizona, and along the Sierra 

 Nevadas to the San Bernardino Mountains, where, at from 7,000 to 

 10,000 ft. altitude, Mr. S. B. Parish has found it as a shrub. It is 

 represented in the coast region at much lower elevations, in its variety 

 lyrachy stocky 8, from the Alaskan boundary to the vicinity of Santa 

 Barbara, Cal., and particularly abundant and well -developed in the 

 swamps and bottom-lands about Puget Sound. 



* Salix flavescens, Nutt. 



