Willow Identification Key: Salix x calodendron

Common Name:

Scientific Name:

New Zealand Clones:

Female: Balana, SM, Hybrida, Black Willow SCCB

Technical Description:

Habit: Large shrub or small tree, growing to about 9 m high, branches rather erect.

Shoots: Brownish, densely covered in dark hairs in first year, flexible, a few short striations beneath the bark.

Leaves: 4-15 cm long, 0.8-4 cm wide; broad lanceolate to obovate; dull green above, felted with ash-grey hairs below at first, more or less hairy when mature, margins obscurely and remotely toothed, raised veins underneath, not bitter.

Catkins: Female, however the clone Hybrida has male flowers as well as female flowers; catkins are erect, rather crowded towards the branchlet tips, more or less cylindrical, long (2.5-5.5 cm), appearing just before the leaves emerge. Sterile

Comments: Parents are thought to be the two sallows S. caprea and S. cinerea, and the osier S. vimimalis. Shows the characteristics of all three species. Resembles the sallows in it's vegetative parts and S. viminalis in habit and catkins.