Salix
Family: Salicaceae
Salix image
Sue Carnahan
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JANAS 29(1)
PLANTS: Shrubs or trees, not clonal or clonal by root suckers. WINTER BUDS: with one external budscale; budscale margins coalescent or free and overlapping. STEMS: erect or spreading, pendulous in some naturalized trees, flexible or brittle at base, not, or thickly, glaucous. LEAVES: stipules leaf-like, rudimentary or absent, usually not strongly glandular; petioles lacking glandular dots near base of blade, dotted or lobed; proximal leaves on vegetative shoots or leaves on flowering branchlets entire, gland-dotted or toothed; mature blades linear to broadly obovate, the margins entire to toothed, the surfaces hairy, glabrous or becoming so, the hairs white or white and rust-colored. INFLORESCENCE: cylindrical or subspherical catkins, sessile or on short leafy branchlets, emerging before (precocious), with (coetaneous), or after (serotinous) the leaves. FLOWERS: subtended by a bract; pistillate floral bracts persistent after flowering or deciduous; stamens (1-) 2(-8); pistils sessile or stipitate, subtended by 1 to several flattened, rod-like, square or cupulate nectaries. FRUIT: lanceolate or ovate. x = 19, 22. NOTES: Ca. 450 spp. worldwide, especially n temp., arctic. (Ancient name for willow). Argus, G. W. 1986. Syst. Bot. Monog. 9:1-170. Argus, G. W. and C.-E. Granfelt. 1988. Madrofio 35:5. Argus, G.W. & C.L. McJannet. 1992. Brittonia 44: 461-474; Dom, R.D. 1976. Canad. J. Bot. 54: 2769-2789; Dom, R.D. 1977. Rhodora 79: 390-429. Taxonomically difficult and often highly variable. Not all specimens will key easily; sprout shoots and other extreme variants are not included in keys. REFERENCES: Argus, George W. 1995. SalicaceaePart 2. Salix. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. 29(1): 39
Vascular plants of NE US and adjacent Canada
Catkins mostly ascending or spreading, seldom drooping, developing before, with, or less often after the lvs, their scales mostly entire, sometimes erose or shallowly toothed at the tip; fls with a single short and broad to slender and elongate ventral protuberance called a gland, or the staminate fls of some spp. also with a dorsal gland; stamens typically 2, seldom only 1 (by fusion of 2), or in some spp. 3-8; stigmas 2, entire or more often bifid; capsules 2-valved; shrubs or less often trees, sometimes depressed and mat-forming; winter-buds covered by a single nonresinous scale. 300+, mainly N. Temp. Taxonomy complicated by hybridization.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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Species within inventory project: Intermountain Regional Herbarium Network
Salix alba
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Salix amygdaloides
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Salix arizonica
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Salix babylonica
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Salix barclayi
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Salix bebbiana
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Salix bonplandiana
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Salix boothii
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Salix brachycarpa
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Salix cascadensis
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Salix cinerea
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Salix drummondiana
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Salix eastwoodiae
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Salix euxina
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Salix exigua
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Salix geyeriana
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Salix glauca
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Salix gooddingii
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Salix jepsonii
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Salix laevigata
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Salix lasiandra
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Salix lasiolepis
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Salix lemmonii
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Salix ligulifolia
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Salix lutea
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Salix matsudana
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Salix melanopsis
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Salix monticola
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Salix nivalis
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Salix orestera
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Salix petrophila
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Salix planifolia
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Salix prolixa
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Salix purpurea
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Salix reticulata
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Salix scouleriana
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Salix sitchensis
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Salix wolfii
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