42 TREES OF NEW ENGLAND. 



Salix nigra, Marsh. 

 BLACK WILLOW. 



Habitat and Range. In low grounds, along streams or 

 ponds, river flats. 



New Brunswick to western Ontario. 



New England, occasional throughout, frequent along the 

 larger streams. 



South to Florida; west to Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Indian 

 territory, Louisiana, Texas, southern California, and south into 

 Mexico. 



Habit. A large shrub or small tree, 25-40 feet high and 

 10-15 inches in trunk diameter, attaining great size in the 

 Ohio and Mississippi valleys and the valley of the lower 

 Colorado ; trunk short, surmounted by an irregular, open, 

 often roundish head, with stout, spreading branches, slender 

 branchlets, and twigs brittle towards their base. 



S. nigra, var. falcata, Pursh., covers about the same range 

 as the type and differs chiefly in its narrower, falcate leaves. 



Bark. Trunk rough, in young trees light brown, in old 

 trees dark-colored or nearly black, deeply and irregularly 

 ridged, separated on the surface into thick, plate-like scales ; 

 branchlets reddish-brown ; twigs bronze olive. 



Winter Buds and Leaves. Buds narrowly conical, acute. 

 Leaves simple, alternate, appearing much later than those 

 of S. discolor, 2-5 inches long, somewhat pubescent on both 

 sides when young, when mature green and smooth above, 

 paler and sometimes pubescent along the veins beneath ; 

 outline narrowly lanceolate, finely serrate ; apex acute or 

 acuminate, often curved ; base acutish to rounded or slightly 

 heart-shaped ; petiole short, usually pubescent ; stipules large 

 and persistent, or small and soon falling. 



Inflorescence. April to May. Appearing with the leaves 

 from the axils of the short, lateral shoots, in catkins, 

 sterile and fertile on different trees, stalked, sterile spread- 

 ing, narrowly cylindrical ; calyx none ; corolla none ; bracts 



