THE WILLOWS OF ALASKA 3II 



abundant along the coast and in the mountains to British Columbia. 

 The form that occurs along the Pacific Coast from California to Brit- 

 ish Columbia differs in several respects from the Rocky Mountain 

 plant and has been designated, either as a species or a variety, by the 

 names brachystachys^ capreoides^ and scouleriana. My attention has 

 recently been called by Professor C. V. Piper to the fact that this last 

 name, scouleriana^ is a valid name, and the oldest name, for the 

 Pacific Coast plant, and is older than the name nuttallii. It ap- 

 pears that Andersson in making a critical identification of the type 

 specimens of scouleriana^' found that the leaf specimen belonged to 

 sitchensis^ while the flowering specimen, v^diich therefore represented 

 the real scouleriana^ he referred to Salix Jiavescens Nutt. Professor 

 Sargent, finding Jiavescens to be a homonym and considering the 

 Rocky mountain plant and the Pacific Coast plant to belong to the 

 same species, followed a course which was inadmissible under the 

 circumstances and gave the species a new name, iiuttallii^ instead of 

 taking up scouleriaiia. Until a critical revision of these willows has 

 been made it will probably be most convenient and least confusing to 

 treat scouleriajia and nuttallii as distinct species. 



Salix nuttallii^ like Salix bebbiana^ evidently reaches Alaska by an 

 extension of its range in the interior of British America, through the 

 humid Sitkan flora, to the coast at Skagway and Cook Inlet. Salix 

 scouleriana apparently does not extend as far north as Alaska. Its 

 only claim to admission into that flora rests on some imperfect 

 young specimens from Wrangell, without flowers or fruit, which may 

 be referable to sitchensis. Kellogg's specimens of scouleriana^ re- 

 ported as collected at Kadiak and Sitka, in fact came from Van- 

 couver, British Columbia. 



4. SALIX ALAXENSIS (Anders.) Coville. Feltleaf Willow. 



Plate xxxiv. 



Salix speciosa Hook. «&: Arx. Bot. Beech. Voy. 130. 1832, not Host, 1828. 

 Salix speciosa alaxensis Anders, in DC. Prodr. 16'': 275. 1868. 

 Salix alaxensis Coville, Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci. 2 : 280. 1900. 

 Salix longistylis Rydberg, Bull. N. Y. Bot. Card. 2: 163. 1901. 



This willow differs notably in its foliage from all the other Pacific 

 Coast species, so much so, indeed, that Hooker and Arnott, the con- 

 servative authors of the ' Botany of Captain Beechey's Voyage in the 

 Blossom,' described the plant from specimens devoid of flowers or 

 fruit. The under surface of the leaves is covered with a dense white 



^Barratt: Hook. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 145. 1838-9. 



2 See Bebb, Gard. & For. 8 : 373. 1895. 



