Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
21. Salicaceae, the Willow Family
2. Salix L. -- Willow16. Salix planifolia Pursh -- Planeleaf willow
Shrub or shrubby tree with clustered trunks, to 3 m tall; twigs dark reddish-brown to nearly black, shiny, glabrous; branchlets spreading to ascending, brown, glabrous. Leaves green above, paler to glaucous beneath, initially short-pubescent but soon glabrous, elliptic to oblanceolate, acute or occasionally obtuse at the tip, rounded to acute at the base, 3-6 cm long, 12-20 mm wide, entire or only sparsely crenulate; petioles glandless, 3-6 mm long; stipules minute, deciduous. Catkins emerging slightly before or with the leaves; female catkins 2-4 cm long, sessile or on short branchlets with 1-3 bractlike leaves; bracts persistent, black, villous; stamens 2. Capsules ovoid with a long neck, 5-8 mm long, pubescent, nearly sessile or on stipes to 1 mm long. Flowering May, fruiting Jun. Stream banks, meadows and moist hillsides at higher elevations in the Black Hills; (Newf. and Labr. to AK, s to ME, NH, VT, n MN, w SD, NM and n CA). S. phylicifolia L. subsp. planifolia (Pursh) Hiitonen.
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