SALICACE^E 



183 



viated branches coated with thick white tomentum, with leaves reduced to minute 

 deciduous scales, oblong-cylindrical, about 1' long and f thick, the staininate soft and 

 silky before the flowers open and densely flowered ; their scales oblong-obovate, dark 

 reddish brown toward the apex, covered on the back with long silky silvery white 

 hairs; stamens 2, with elongated glabrous filaments; ovary oblong-cylindrical, long- 

 stalked, narrowed above the middle, villous, with a short distinct style and broad 

 spreading entire stigmas. Fruit cylindrical, more or less contracted above the 

 middle, long-pointed, light brown, coated with pale pubescence. 



A tree, rarely more than 25 high, with a trunk about 1 in diameter, stout as- 

 cending branches forming an open round-topped head, and stout brauchlets marked 

 by occasional orange-colored lenticels, dark reddish purple and coated at first with 

 pale deciduous pubescence; more often shrubby, with numerous tall straggling stems. 

 Winter-buds semiterete, flattened and acute at the apex, about f ' long, dark red- 

 dish purple and lustrous. Bark \' thick, light brown tinged with red, and divided 

 by shallow fissures into thin plate-like oblong scales. Wood light, soft, close-grained, 

 brown streaked with red, with lighter brown sap wood. 



Distribution. Moist meadows and the banks of streams and lakes; Nova Scotia 

 to Manitoba, and southward to Delaware, southern Indiana and Illinois, and north- 

 eastern Missouri; common. 



16. Salix Bebbiana, Sarg. Willow. 



Leaves conduplicate in the bud, oblong-obovate to oblong-elliptical or lanceolate, 

 gradually narrowed and wedge-shaped or rounded at the base, acuminate and short- 



pointed or acute at the apex, remotely and irregularly serrate usually only above the 

 middle, or rarely entire; when they unfold pale gray-green, glabrous or villous, and 

 often tinged with red on the upper surface and coated on the lower with pale tomen- 

 tum or pubescence, at maturity thick and firm, dull green and glabrous or puberulous 

 above, blue or silvery white and covered with pale rufous pubescence below, espe- 

 cially along the midribs, veins, and conspicuous reticulate veinlets, l'-3' long, ^'-1' 

 wide; their petioles slender, often pubescent, reddish, \'-%' long; stipules foliaceous, 

 semicordate, glandular-dentate, sometimes nearly ' long on vigorous shoots, decid- 

 uous. Flowers: aments erect and terminal on short leafy branches; their scales 



