Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

PEACH-LEAF WILLOW

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Salix amygdaloides Andersson

Cloud County, Kansas

Height: Trees, to 32 feet

Family: Salicaceae - Willow Family

Flowering Period: March, April

Trunks:

Dioecious; trunk spreading to ascending; bark brown, fissures irregular, ridges flat or shaggy; wood tan, soft.

Twigs:

Grayish brown to light yellow, flexible to more or less brittle, glabrous; leaf scars nearly straight to shallowly crescent-shaped; buds brown to reddish brown, ovoid, .08 to .16 inch, apex acute, scales glabrous.

Leaves:

Deciduous, alternate, simple; stipules usually caducous, absent or rudimentary on early leaves, rudimentary or leaf-like on late leaves, kidney-shaped, .2 to .28 inch long, .3 to .5 inch wide, margins serrate; petiole .2 to 1 inch; blade lanceolate to narrowly ovate, 1.2 to 5.2 inches long, .8 to 1.4 inches wide, base acute to rounded, margins serrulate, apex acuminate, lower surface grayish green, glabrous or glabrate, glaucous, upper surface yellowish green, glabrous, more or less dull.

Flowers:

Inflorescences axillary from lateral buds of previous year, emerging with leaves, catkins, spreading or lax; staminate catkins: .8 to 3.2 inches long, .2 to .5 inch wide, many-flowered, on leafy branches 1.2 to 1.6 inches; peduncle .16 to .4 inch, villous; pedicels absent; bract .06 to .11 inch; pistillate catkins: 1.6 to 4.4 inches long, .3 to .6 inch wide, many-flowered, on leafy branches .8 to 1.6 inches; peduncle .2 to .6 inch, glabrous or sparsely villous; pedicels absent; pistillate bract ca. .08 inch, deciduous after flowering. Flowers unisexual, more or less radially symmetric; perianth reduced to abaxial and adaxial nectaries; staminate: stamens 3-7; pistillate: perianth reduced to adaxial nectary; pistil 1; styles 2; stigmas 2.

Fruit:

May-June; capsules, ovoid, .12 to .28 inch long, .07 to .09 inch wide, glabrous; stipe .04 to .1 inch; seeds 15-20, greenish brown, cylindric, ca. .05 inch, base with tuft of capillary hairs, apex pointed.

Habitat:

Floodplains, stream banks, shorelines of reservoirs, ponds, and lakes, moist ravines, ditches, wet or damp places.

Distribution:

Throughout Kansas

Origin:

Native

Uses:

The Cheyenne took an infusion of bark for diarrhea; applied a poultice of bark to bleeding cuts; used the branches to build sweat lodges and meat drying racks; and made drums from the wood (Hart 1981).

Peach-leaf willow leaf