veins sunk above, prominent beneath. Stipules deciduous*,
small, ovate or half-heart-shaped, glaudulose on the edges
and on the upper surface ; rather more considerable on the
female than on the male plant. Male catkins scarcely an
inch long, thickish, cylindrical, on a short woolly stalk with
2—4 nearly sessile, recurved, entire, or minutely serrated,
oblong bracteal leaves, clothed on the underside and fringed
with long silky hairs. Scales closely-set, oblong, rounded,
concave, pale and membranous in the lower part, dotted
with red and finally turning black at the point. Nectary
not half so long as the scale, truncate, sometimes irregular.
Stamens 2, slightly bearded at the base; anthers tinged
with red. Germen rounded at the base, contracted towards
the middle, and attenuated upwards; its stalk woolly, and
when the flowers are in perfection about half as long as the
scale, lengthening as the fructification advances. The
germen itself is densely clothed with short, appressed, silky
hairs, which remain on the full-grown capsule. Style
smooth, rather longer than the pale stigmas. The flowers
appear with us before the leaves in April or May, about a
fortnight later than those of S. Borreriana.
S. nitens is nearly allied to S. Weigeliana, and still more
nearly to S. Croweana. The leaves however of this last
are less pointed, almost obovate, and in every stage without
pubescence even on the leaf-stalk, their edges rarely
waved and more obscurely crenate; the scales of the catkin
shorter and rounder. On the combined filaments of the
stamens we lay no stress, believing that state to be but an
accidental monstrosity. Indeed they are represented in
Salictum Woburnense as changing into germens, as those of
S. bicolor of Ehrhart, and of some of the common Sallows
have been observed to do.—W. B.
* It has been asserted that the stipules of Willows, when produced at
all, never fall but with the leaves; but experience disproves the assertion.