236 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
acute, callous-serrate, dull green, slightly shining, even and sub- 
glabrous or very thinly hairy above, glaucous and sparingly hairy or 
subglabrous beneath, and softly pubescent on both sides where they are 
silky on the veins. Stipules small, ovate, half-cordate, caducous. Male 
flowers unknown. Female catkins opening at the same time as the 
leaf-buds, shortly stalked or subsessile, with a few foliaceous bracts at 
the base, rather dense, cylindrical. Catkin-scales strapshaped, obtuse, 
thinly pilose. Capsule subulate-conical, whitish silky-tomentose, on 
a stalk three or four times as long as the nectary; style elongate, 
commonly exceeding the stigmas; stigmas short, ovate, generally 
9-cleft. Branches of the year and buds finely downy, soon becoming 
glabrous; leaves sometimes hairy, blackish in drying, but only if 
gathered young. 
In woods and thickets. Rather rare. Smith states, on the authority 
of Mr. Crowe, that it is not uncommon in Norfolk. It occurs in the 
Isle of Wight, by a little pool close to Newtown, on the right hand of 
the road from Shalfleet between the Town Hall and Fretland’s farm; 
perhaps also in a hedge by the side of a horse path from Alveston to 
Nunworth Down (Dr. Bromfield); Bryanston, Dorset (Mr, T°. 
Mansel) ; Richmond, Yorkshire (Mr. J. Ward in Leefe, Sal. Brit. No. 43). 
Probably it occurs elsewhere, but it has been so much confounded with 
forms of S. phylicifolia that I cannot give its correct distribution in 
England, and I have no reliable record of it from Scotland. In Ireland, 
where it isa doubtful native, it occurs near Carrigline in a moist bushy 
place by the roadside between Castle Dawson and Bellaghy, eo. Derry, 
also on the shore of Lough Neagh, near Massarene Park, Antrim. 
England, Ireland. Shrub or tree. Late Spring or early Summer. 
A bush rarely above 6 feet high, but when left to itself sometimes 
reaching 20 or 30 feet in height, with upright virgate mahogany 
coloured branches and numerous nearly upright leaves. Leaves 
from 2 to 4 inches long, widest a little beyond the middle, where 
they are 1 to 2 inches across, when young resembling those of 
S. Caprea, but with the hairs rather more silky, when full-grown, 
however, they are much more like those of 8. phylicifolia. Catkins 
numerous, suberect, 1 to 1} inch long, with the scales much shorter 
than the ovaries, which are white. 
This is well distinguished from all the forms of S. Caprea, S. 
cinerea, and S. aurita by the elongate style and later period of flower- 
ing, the hairs are also more silky and less crisped, and the mature 
leaves are more rigid, brighter green above, and more glaucous 
beneath, and the capsule has a shorter stalk, and the catkin-scales are 
shorter in proportion. 
