glands. Buds pale, very silky. Catkins earlier than the
leaves, about an inch long, on short stalks bearing a few
bracteas like the lowermost leaves of the barren twigs;
flowers closely set, with a blackish, bearded, obovate calyx-
scale, scarcely longer than the considerable stalk of the
germen. Germen ovate-lanceolate, silky. Style short.
Stigmas about as long, cloven, pale or reddish.
The Herbarium of Linnaeus proves this his Salix incu-
bacea/ but our specimens received from Germany as the
& angustifolia of Wulfen, and which agree better with the
description in Jacquin’s Collectanea, are closely allied to
Smith’s S. Arbuscula, t. 1366, if really distinct from i t ; and
Willdenow’s S. incubacea is probably the same. All the
synonyms quoted from the older authors we regard as extremely
doubtful.
Our specimens are the produce of cuttings brought from
Hopton, Suffolk, where the plant was discovered by Mr.
Forster. It flowers with us in May, at the same time with
S.argentea, to which it betrays the closest affinity in its mode
of growth, flowers, stipules, and silky pubescence, and
from which it differs in little besides the shape of the leaf.
Serratures are indeed more frequently found, and more apparent
when present; but in S . argentea the leaves are not
always strictly entire. We have seen, on Swiss specimens,
the male flowers of S. incubacea, but they afford no distinctive
marks. The more humble S. adscendens, t. 1962. (S.
fcetida of Engl. FI.) is, on the other side, very difficult to
be distinguished by any sound character from S. incubacea.
Perhaps future observations may induce botanists in general
to unite the three, if not to join to them also the S. fiisca
and S. repens of Linnaeus, which Wahlenberg and Fries
(to whom our S. adscendens seems unknown), include as
one species with S. argentea and S. incubacea under the
name of S.fusca.—W. B.