SALICACE^E 



169 



sionally 120 high, with a trunk 3 in diameter, stout spreading upright branches 

 forming a broad somewhat irregular handsome open head, and rather bright reddish 

 brown to pale orange-colored branchlets, glabrous or coated at first with pale pubes- 

 cence or snowy tomentum and easily separated at the joints. Winter-buds acute, 

 about ^' long. Bark I'-l^' thick, dark brown or nearly black or light brown tinged 

 with orange color, and deeply divided into broad flat connected ridges separating freely 

 into thick plate-like scales and becoming shaggy on old trunks. Wood light, soft, 

 weak, light reddish brown, with thin nearly white sapwood. 



Distribution. Low moist alluvial banks of streams and lakes; southern New 

 Brunswick and the northern shores of Lakes Huron and Superior to southern Florida, 

 and to eastern Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and the Indian Territory; through west- 

 ern Texas, southern New Mexico and Arizona, and southward in Mexico; along the 

 western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and northward in western California to the 



valley of the Sacramento River and the eastern base of the Coast Range in Caloosa 

 County ; the largest and most conspicuous native Willow of eastern North America; 

 most abundant in the basin of thf Mississippi Ri^er, and of its largest size in southern 

 Indiana and Illinois and in the vajjey of the lower Colorado River in Texas; rare in 

 California. 



2. Salix longipes, Anders. Black Willow. 

 (Salix Wardi, and Salix occidentalis, Silva N. Am. ix. 107, 109.) 



Leaves involute in the bud, finely and unequally serrate, lanceolate to ovate-lance- 

 olate, often slightly falcate, rounded or cordate at the base, obliquely long-pointed, 

 4'-7' long, I'-l^' wide, or linear-lanceolate, acute, rounded or auriculate at the base 

 and often less than ' wide, often puberulous, becoming glabrous and bright light 

 green above, silvery white below, pubescent along the under side of the midribs and 

 veins, their petioles broad, flat, sometimes f long; stipules foliaceous, reniform, 

 rhomboidal or oblong, obtuse, serrate above the middle, frequently % long, some- 

 times persistent. Flowers: aments terminal on leafy glabrous or hoary-pubescent 

 branches, narrowly cylindrical, the staminate 3' or 4' long, rather longer than the 

 pistillate, their scales ovate, obtuse, villous, orange-yellow; stamens 3-7, with fila- 

 ments furnished at the base with numerous long slender hairs; anthers yellow; ovary 



