dilated about the middle of their length, mostly entire towards
the point, which is acute but not acuminate, elsewhere
beset with bluntish, often slightly wavy serratures :
in their earliest stage they are more oblong and densely
silky; in their adult state almost naked on both sides, except
at the mid-rib, dark green and somewhat shining above,
beneath bright yellowish green, in no degree glaucescent,
but often, there also, rather shining ; veins nearly rectangular,
sunken a little above, prominent beneath. The small
primordial leaves are somewhat obtuse. Leaf-stalks about
one-fourth as long as the leaves, frequently reddish, covered
with short dense pubescence. Stipules half-heartshaped,
vaulted, toothed, glandulose on the edges, and on the disk
near their insertion. Catkins small, less than an inch long
when in flower, on hairy, patent stalks of about half the
length, with three or four oblong, blunt, serrulate, recurved
floral-leaves, slightly silky at the back, of which the uppermost
is sometimes nearly as long as the catkin, but more
often, like the rest, much shorter. Calyx-scales obovate,
slightly concave, pale; towards the rounded apex dotted
with red and at length turning black. Nectary interior,
truncate, pale yellow, not half so long at the calyx-scale.
Germen on a more or less hairy stalk, more than half as long
as the calyx ; itself naked, green, obsoletely quadrangular,
a little bulging at the lower part, then tapering gradually
to the thickish paler style, which is cloven at the point, so
as to furnish diverging stalks to the small whitish or very
pale pink stigmas. The flowers appear, with the young
leaves, about the middle of April.
Perhaps too nearly allied to S. Andersoniana to be properly
regarded as a species. In that plant the leaves,
especially the lower ones, are more oblong, and their underside
is not so absolutely devoid of a glaucous tinge; the
catkins are shorter and rarely overtop the larger and generally
leaf-like bracteas; the flowers, except that they are
more loosely set and their calyx-scales more oblong and
blacker, are very nearly the same in structure. If the ger-
men-stalk is sometimes naked (which we have not seen), it
is usually hairy. Koch would, no doubt, refer S. damascena,
as he does its affinities S.Andersoniana, S. nigricans, &c., to
Wahlenberg’s S. phylicifolia ; but those botanists would
scarcely have appropriated the name to Willows of this set,
had they been aware of the fact that the original Lapland
specimen of ,S. phylicifolia, in the Linnsean Herbarium, is
indubitably, as was long since stated by Smith, the S. phylicifolia
of Engl. Bot. 1.1958. This last is united by Koch,
with numerous affinities, to S. Arbuscula of Wahlenberg,
which he regards as the S. Arbuscula, of the Linnsean
Flora Suecica.—W. B.