Willow Identification Key: Salix alba

Common Name:

Scientific Name:

New Zealand Clones:

Technical Description:

Large tree to 20 m tall;

Twigs golden yellow to orange, brittle or sometimes flexible; branchlets spreading, golden yellow to dark brown, glabrous with age

Leaves dark green and shiny above, white-glaucous beneath, glabrous to sparsely sericeous beneath, lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, acuminate and often symmetric at the tip, cuneate at the base, mostly 4-10 cm long, 1-2.5 cm wide, serrate, mostly with 7-10 glandular teeth per cm of margin

Petioles glandless or with minute vestiges of glands at the summit, 0.5-1.5 cm long; stipules caducous, lanceolate, entire, 2-4 mm long, sericeous

Catkins appearing with the leaves

Female catkins 3-6 cm long, on leafy branchlets 1-3(5) cm long

Bracts yellowish-green to pale yellow, early deciduous, pubescent, ciliate at the tip

Stamens: 2

Capsules: ovoid-conic, 3.5-5 mm long, glabrous, nearly sessile or on

Stipes: to 1 mm long.

Comments: Forms white rootlets in water.

(from Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center.)