SALIX CORDATA x SERICEA. 
N. M. GLATFELTER. 
TuE general aspect and specific characters of Salix cordata 
and S. sericea serve to distinguish them quite readily. There 
have Sprung up between them numerous intermediate forms, 
hybrids, and races, crossing with each other and with the parental 
forms, resulting in an almost inextricable confusion, on the one 
hand approaching S. sericea, on the other S. cordata. This free 
intermixture resulting in more or less good varieties in different 
localities is no doubt the sufficient explanation of the confusion - 
that results from reading the various descriptions of S. cordata. 
As in all probability the descriptions were all founded upon 
specimens collected from regions where both of the species are 
native, it is absolutely certain that about the same complications 
must have been present as are found prevailing in the vicinity of 
St. Louis. ae 
During the preparation of my paper last year on S. Mis- 
Souriensis and'S. cordata* | gradually got the feeling of the great 
necessity of further investigation of this subject. I therefore 
made collections in bud, in flower, and in mature leaf, of several 
hundred marked plants, taking notes of every detail. _ 
summary at the end of this paper is but a partial transcript 0 
the notes of eighty-two of those collected. In the Engelmana 
Herbarium of the Missouri Botanical Garden there is : long 
letter written about 1880 by the late M. S. Bebb, in which he 
refers to the frequent hybridization of S. cordata with S. eee 
He gives a fairly good description of these hybrids, but Be 
to have limited too much the extent of their influence. . | 
example, he limits the height to *, while some of our spe — 
. 
. all 
imens here rise to 2 5 or 30". The specimens he contributed alt 
* Trans. St. Louis Acad. Sci.7:—. 1895. [ NOVEMBER 
392 oS 
