Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Salix humilis Marshall
- Family: Willow (Salicaceae)
- Flowering: March-June
- Field Marks: This willow is distinguished by its shrubby growth form, the more or less toothless or wavy-edged leaves gray-hairy on the lower surface, and the young branchlets densely gray-hairy.
- Habitat: Dry thickets, prairies, along roads.
- Habit: Shrub to 9 feet tall; bark gray.
- Stems: Twigs slender, densely gray-hairy, branched or unbranched; buds oblongoid, rounded at the tip, finely hairy, brown.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, elliptic to oblanceolate, pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, up to 6 inches long, up to 1 1/2 inches wide, toothless or wavy-edged, gray-green and smooth or hairy on the upper surface, gray-hairy on the under surface; leaf stalks downy-hairy, up to 1/2 inch long.
- Flowers: Male and female flowers borne in different spikes on separate shrubs, the male spikes up to 1 1/2 inches long, the female spikes up to 2 1/2 inches long, both types appearing before the leaves unfold; bracts oblanceolate, hairy, black-tipped.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 2.
- Pistils: Ovary superior, hairy.
- Fruits: Capsules lanceoloid, hairy, up to nearly 1/2 inch long, on a stalk about 1/12 inch long.
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