The Glaucous Willow— ‘S ’discolor 
T?OR a brief period in early spring the 
Glaucous Willow adds the final touch 
of beauty to the landscape. It dots the 
hillsides and the water courses with the yel¬ 
low tones of its pollen-bearing blossoms and 
the delicate greens of its seed-hearing cat¬ 
kins, making for a week or two the greatest 
show of any of the trees or shrubs. The 
blossoming branches attract the visits of a 
host of small bees which come out of their 
winter burrows very early in the spring and 
gather from the pussy willows nectar and 
pollen to provision their nests. The flowers 
are also sought out by the queen humble- 
bees, the early butterflies and certain other 
insects which serve the plant by carrying 
pollen from one kind of flower to the other 
and thus enable it to develop the small fruits 
which, late in spring or early in summer, 
break open and allow the downy seeds to 
he wafted away by the wind. 
T he Glaucous Willow is more likely to he 
found as a shrub than as a tree, although in 
northern New England it very commonly 
assumes the tree form, some of the trees 
reaching a diameter of ten or twelve inches. 
The species ranges from Nova Scotia to 
Manitoba on the north, extending south¬ 
ward to Missouri, Illinois and North Caro¬ 
lina. In summer it may usually be dis¬ 
tinguished by the whitish color of the under 
leaf surface, the leaves having slightly and 
sparsely serrate margins and the general 
form shown in the right-hand picture of the 
plate. 
..'This is pre-eminently the Pussy Willow, 
being the species to which this title is prop¬ 
erly applied. It is very easily reproduced 
from ; cuttings and is of decided value in 
landscape planting especially along water 
courses where its roots serve to hold the 
hanks of the stream in place and where also 
its flowers in early spring add unique beauty 
to the landscape. 
20 
