attaining twice that length, on woolly stalks with a few
small bluntish linear-oblong bracteal leaves, which are
entire or nearly so, silky beneath. Calyx-scales oblong,
rather acute, blackish brown in the upper half, with long
silky hairs. Germen subulate, densely silky, bn a silky
stalk, about half as long as the scale, the length of which it
does not equal as the fructification advances. Style smooth,
longer than the thickish, downy, spreading, scarcely divided
stigmas.
Sir J. E. Smith appears to have joined with S. laurina
(S. bicolor of Engl. Bot. t. 1806.) the specimens of the present
Willow which were communicated to him. It is, indeed,
very nearly allied to that species, and like it intermediate
between the common Sallows and the smooth bright-leaved
affinities of S. phylicifolia; resembling some of the former
more nearly in general habit and in the shape of the leaves,
the latter in the deciduous nature of the pubescence and in
the very glandulose stipules. The branches are of laxer
growth than in S. laurina; the twigs paler; the leaves
more spreading, on longer and less dilated stalks, narrower,
more acute at the base, less downy when young, and the
short hairs of the underside less persistent. Catkins shorter
and much more slender, especially in their advanced
state, when the stalk of the capsule, although lengthened,
does not, as in that species, equal or exceed the scale, the
scale itself being longer and more acute ; the capsule too
is less grey, with more silky and more closely appressed
pubescence.
No synonyms of this Salix have been ascertained. The
S' nigricans angustifolia of Seringe’s Saules de la Suisse,
no. 22. A. is very similar, but the calyx-scales in his specimens
are more rounded and the stigmas cleft. The division
of the stigmas, it is true, depends much on circumstances
in the Willows in general.—W^. B.