PRAIRIE WILLOW
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| File Size: 142 KB |
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Salix humilis Marshall
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| (Craig Freeman photo) |
| Height: 1-9 feet |
| Family: Salicaceae - Willow Family |
| Flowering Period: April, May |
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| Trunks: | | Stems ascending or erect, rarely decumbent; branches unarmed. Bark grayish brown, fissures shallow, ridges narrow; wood white, soft. | | Twigs: | | Reddish brown to yellowish brown, flexible to +/- brittle, tomentose, sometimes becoming glabrous with age; leaf scars nearly straight to shallowly crescent-shaped; buds reddish brown, ovoid, 1/6 to 1/4 inch, apex obtuse, scales tomentose. | | Leaves: | | Deciduous, alternate, simple; stipules usually caducous, absent or rudimentary on early leaves, absent, rudimentary, or foliaceous on late leaves, lanceolate to ovate or crescent-shaped, .12 to .28 inch long, .06 to .08 inch wide, margins serrate; petiole .02 to .5 inch; blade oblanceolate to narrowly obovate, oblong, or elliptic, (.6-)1.6 to 3.6 inches long, .03 to 1 inch wide, base wedge-shaped, margins subentire to coarsely and irregularly serrate, apex acute, surfaces abaxially silvery white, puberulent or glabrate, glaucous, adaxially dark green to green, usually glabrous or glabrate, sometimes sparsely pilose,+/- shiny. | | Flowers: | | Inflorescences axillary from lateral buds of previous year, flowering before leaves, catkins, spreading; staminate catkins: .24 to 1.8 inch long, .28 to .8 inch wide, many-flowered, leafy branches absent; peduncle absent; pedicels absent; bract .03 to .08 inch; pistillate catkins: .4 to 2 inches long, .2 to .8 inch wide, many-flowered, on leafy branches; peduncle absent; pedicels .06 to .08 inch; pistillate bract .06 to .08 inch, usually persistent after flowering. Flowers unisexual, +/- radially symmetric; perianth reduced to adaxial nectary; staminate flowers: stamens 2; pistillate flowers: perianth reduced to adaxial nectary; pistil 1; styles 2; stigmas 2. | | Fruit: | | May-June; capsules, ovoid, .28 to .5 inch long, .06 to .08 inch wide, minutely pubescent; stipe .04 to .1 inch; seeds 5-15, greenish black, cylindric, .05 to .06 inch long, base with tuft of capillary hairs, apex pointed. | | Habitat: | | Upland tallgrass prairies, loess prairies, glades, clearings in woodlands, usually on sandy soil. | | Distribution: | | East 1/2 of Kansas | | Origin: | | Native | | Comments: | | Shrubs, dioecious. There are two varieties in Kansas: var. humilis and var. tristis. |
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| Prairie willow habit |  | | 343 KB | | (Craig Freeman photo) |
| | Prairie willow catkins |  | | 136 KB | | (Craig Freeman photo) |
| | Prairie willow fruit |  | | 158 KB | | (Craig Freeman photo) |
| | Prairie willow habit |  | | 334 KB | | Leavenworth County, Kansas |
| | Prairie willow leaves |  | | 289 KB | | Leavenworth County, Kansas |
| | Prairie willow habit |  | | 370 KB | | Leavenworth County, Kansas |
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