256 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
spicuously grayish and sage-like in its appearance, and from 
one to three feet high; the larger, three or four feet high, with 
larger, broader, and longer leaves of a deeper green. 
The sage willow is a slender, hoary plant, or a spreading 
tufted bush, one or two feet high, growing in the openings and 
on the borders of dry, sandy woods. Its root is large and strong, 
often an inch or two in diameter, with’ reddish wood. and thick 
bark, extending some distance, often two or three feet, at a few 
inches beneath the surface. From this rise several stems of a 
yellowish green, or, later, grayish brown, somewhat downy, 
and clouded often with dark brown. The central stem, long 
and very slender, bears the fructification. After the decay of 
which, it 1s bare, or with a few leaves at the extremity. [F'rom 
the lower part of it, and from the other stems, shoot the leaf- 
bearing branches. On these the leaves are somewhat crowded, 
narrow-obovate, spatulate, one or two inches loug, broadest 
towards the upper end, and tapering gradually to a very short 
petiole, acute at the extremity, reflexed and waved at the mar- 
sin, downy on the mid-rib and vems, and corrugate, sage-like 
above, whitish tomentose beneath. It not unfrequently bears 
small leafy cones. 
Tn one sub-variety, the leaves are crowded and very short, not 
half an inch long, and the whole upper part of the plant is 
covered with a dense, whitish gray tomentum. 
Var. 2.—Very much like this, but larger in all respects, is 
the variety which has been called Muhlenberg’s willow. 
The main stem is smooth and ofa bright green below, cloud- 
ed and somewhat downy above. ‘The recent branches greenish 
yellow, downy, and spreading. Leaves from one and a half to 
three inches long, oblong lanceolate, half an inch wide, pointed 
at the extremity, rounded or rather acute at base, entire, waved, 
revolute at the margin, corrugate with depressed veins, and sage- 
like, with the mid-rib downy above, glaucous, with the mid-rib 
and veins prominent beneath, but without down on the mature 
leaves. ‘I'he young leaves aredowny on both surfaces,—revolute 
in estivation; stipules small, ear-shaped, pointed above, with 
one or two teeth on each side, recurved at the margin, some- 
times appendaged at base. 
