182 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



appearing early in February on short leafy branches, the staminate 1% long and 

 nearly ' wide and rather longer than the more slender pistillate aments becoming 

 at maturity lax and 3'^i' long ; their scales oblong-obovate, light green, and clothed 

 on the outer surface with Jong straight silvery hairs; stamens 2, with elongated free 

 glabrous filaments; ovary cylindrical, short-stalked, beaked, glabrous, with a short 

 style and spreading entire or slightly emarginate stigmas. Fruit narrow, long- 

 pointed, light reddish brown, long-stalked. 



A tree, 40-50 high, with a tall straight trunk 10'-12' or rarely 18' in diameter, 

 rather slender upright slightly spreading branches forming a narrow open symmet- 

 rical head, and slender branchlets marked by small scattered orange-colored lenticels, 

 light green and coated during their first year with thick pale pubescence, becoming 

 reddish brown and glabrous or puberulous in their second winter. Winter-buds 

 ovate, rounded on the back, flattened or acute at the apex, reddish brown, hoary- 

 tomentose, nearly 1' long. Bark thin, smooth, light gray slightly tinged with red, 

 and covered with minute closely appressed plate-like scales. Wood dark red-brown, 

 with thin pale sapwood ; durable, used for fence-posts. 



Distribution. Deep sandy alluvial bottom-lands of the Missouri River in western 

 Missouri, through northeastern Kansas, and from the neighborhood of St. Louis to 

 northwestern Iowa. 



**Capsule pubescent (glabrous in 19). 



-t-Leaves glabrous or nearly so at maturity (pubescent sometimes in 15). 



15. Saliz discolor, Muehl. Glaucous Willow. 



Leaves convolute in the bud, oblong or oblong-obovate or rarely lanceolate, gradu- 

 ally narrowed at the ends, remotely crenulate-serrate, as they unfold thin, light 

 green often tinged with red, pubescent above and coated with pale tomentum below, 

 at maturity thick and firm, glabrous, conspicuously reticulate-venulose, bright green 

 above, glaucous or silvery white below, 3'-5' long, f '-!' wide, with broad yellow 



midribs and slender arcuate primary veins; their petioles slender, '-!' long; stipules 

 foliaceous, semilunar, acute, glandular-dentate, about \' long, deciduous. Flowers : 

 aments appearing late in winter or in very early spring, erect, terminal on abbre- 



