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WILLOWS. 
Natural Order , Ament ace^:, (Jussieu.) Suborder , Sali- 
cine^:. Linnssan Classification , Dkecia, Diandria, &c. 
SALIX.t (Tournefort, Linn.) 
The flowers are diceciousJ or very rarely monoecious, disposed 
in ovoid or cylindric catkins, composed of undivided scales, 
which are imbricated over each other, and each with the pis- 
tils or stamens form a flower; at the base of these scales exists 
a small glandular body, which is either simple or bifid, and 
surrounds the interior organs of reproduction. In the male 
flowers there exists from 1 to 5, or even 7 to 9 stamens, (ordi- 
narily there are only 2.) In the female flowers the ovary 
is single, terminated by a bifid style, having usually 4 stigmas. 
The capsule or follicle consists of 1 cell with 2 valves. The 
seeds are very numerous and minute, each terminated by a 
long tuft of hairs or pappus; the radicle is inferior, or in an 
inverse position to that of the Poplars, to which they are so 
intimately allied. 
The Willows, numerous in species, are all (with two 
exceptions in the straits of Magellan and Peru) natives 
of the northern hemisphere, and all of them shrubs or 
trees, some not more than an inch in height above the 
ground, confined to the highest summits of lofty moun- 
f Said to be derived from the Celtic sal, near, and I is, water. 
X A term used by Linnaeus to designate a class of plants which 
have flowers of different sexes on two different individuals: mo- 
ncecia, with two sorts of flowers on different parts of the same 
plant. 
