Black Willow
=Habitat and Range.=--In low grounds, along streams or ponds, river
flats.
New Brunswick to western Ontario.
New England,--occasional throughout, frequent along the larger streams.
South to Florida; west to Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Indian
territory, Louisiana, Texas, southern California, and south into
Mexico.
=Habit.=--A large sh
ub or small tree, 25-40 feet high and 10-15 inches
in trunk diameter, attaining great size in the Ohio and Mississippi
valleys and the valley of the lower Colorado; trunk short, surmounted by
an irregular, open, often roundish head, with stout, spreading branches,
slender branchlets, and twigs brittle towards their base.
S. nigra, var. falcata, Pursh., covers about the same range as the
type and differs chiefly in its narrower, falcate leaves.
=Bark.=--Trunk rough, in young trees light brown, in old trees
dark-colored or nearly black, deeply and irregularly ridged, separated
on the surface into thick, plate-like scales; branchlets reddish-brown;
twigs bronze olive.
=Winter Buds and Leaves.=--Buds narrowly conical, acute. Leaves simple,
alternate, appearing much later than those of S. discolor, 2-5 inches
long, somewhat pubescent on both sides when young, when mature green and
smooth above, paler and sometimes pubescent along the veins beneath;
outline narrowly lanceolate, finely serrate; apex acute or acuminate,
often curved; base acutish to rounded or slightly heart-shaped; petiole
short, usually pubescent; stipules large and persistent, or small and
soon falling.
=Inflorescence.=--April to May. Appearing with the leaves from the axils
of the short, lateral shoots, in catkins, sterile and fertile on
different trees, stalked,--sterile spreading, narrowly cylindrical;
calyx none; corolla none; bracts entire, rounded to oblong, villous,
ciliate; stamens about 5: fertile catkins spreading; calyx none; corolla
none; bracts ovate to narrowly oblong, acute, villous; ovary
short-stalked, with two small glands at its base, ovate-conical,
sometimes obovate, smooth; stigmas 2, short.
=Fruit.=--Fertile catkins drooping: capsules ovate-conical,
short-stemmed, minutely granular; style very short: seeds numerous.
=Horticultural Value.=--Hardy in New England; grows rapidly in all
soils, particularly useful in very wet situations; seriously affected by
insects; occasionally offered in nurseries; transplanted readily;
propagated from cuttings.
1. Winter buds.
2. Branch with sterile catkins.
3. Sterile flower, side view.
4. Sterile flower, front view.
5. Branch with fertile catkins.
6. Fertile flower, side view.
7. Fertile flower, front view.
8. Fruiting branch.
9. Fruit enlarged.
=Salix fragilis and Salix alba.=
The fragilis and alba group of genus Salix gives rise to puzzling
questions of determination and nomenclature. Pure fragilis and pure
alba are perfectly distinct plants, fragilis occasional, locally
rather common, and alba rather rare within the limits of the United
States. Each species has varieties; the two species hybridize with each
other and with native species, and the hybrids themselves have varietal
forms. This group affords a tempting field for the manufacture of
species and varieties, about most of which so little is known that any
attempt to assign a definite range would be necessarily imperfect and
misleading. The range as given below in either species simply points out
the limits within which any one of the various forms of that species
appears to be spontaneous.
=Salix fragilis, L.=