TAXONOMY 
261 
Inflorescences dioecious spikes, so on separate plants. Staminate 
spikes forming deciduous catkins of yellowish flowers, pistillate 
as persistent spikes of green flowers, at length maturing fruit. 
Flowers of catkins numerous, each of two to five (Willow) or 
six to fifteen (Poplar) stamens in axil of a small bract leaf, sometimes 
with small nectar knob or girdle at base; pollen abundant, hence 
plants anemophilous, rarely entomophilous. Pistillate flowers 
green, each of a bicarpellate pistil in axil of bract, ovary one-celled 
with parietal placentation, style simple, stigma bilobed. 
Fruit a capsule dehiscing longitudinally. Seeds small, exal- 
buminous, surrounded by a tuft of hairs for dissemination. 
Botanical name Habitat 
Several species of Europe, North 
Salix and Populus America 
Salix alba Europe 
Populus nigra 
Populus \ North America 
balsamifera 
III. Order Myricales. — Myricacece or Bayberry Family. — Dioe- 
cious or sometimes monoecious, aromatic shrubs or trees with watery 
juice and possessing underground branches which arch downward 
then upward producing many suckers. Roots fibrous and bearing 
many short rootlets upon which are frequently found coralloid 
clusters of tubercles containing the Actinomyces Myricarum Young- 
ken. Leaves alternate, revolute in vernation, serrate, irregularly 
dentate, lobed or entire, rarely pinnatifid, pinnately and reticulately 
veined, pellucid punctate, evergreen or deciduous, generally 
exstipulate, rarely stipulate. Flowers naked, unisexual, monoecious 
or dioecious, in the axils of unisexual or androgynous aments from 
scaly buds formed in the summer in the axils of the leaves of the 
year, remaining covered during the winter and opening in March or 
April before or with the unfolding of the leaves of the year. 
Staminate flowers in elongated catkins, each consisting of two to 
eight stamens inserted on the torus-like base of the oval to oval- 
lanceolate bracts of the catkin, usually subtended by two or four 
or rarely by numerous bracteoles; filaments short or elongated, 
Official drug 
Salicin 
Salix 
Populi Gemma; 
N.F. 
Part used 
Glucoside 
Bark 
Closed leaf buds 
