Distribution. Deep sandy alluvial bottom-lands of the Missouri River in southwestern Nebraska to western Missouri; through northeastern Kansas and eastern Oklahoma to Cache Creek, Comanche County (G. W. Stevens); and from the neighborhood of St. Louis to southeastern and western Iowa.
17. [Salix pyrifolia] Anders.
Salix balsamifera Barr.
Leaves ovate to oblong-lanceolate, acute at apex, broad and rounded and usually subcordate at base, finely glandular serrulate, balsamic particularly while young, when they unfold thin, pellucid, red and coated below with long slender caducous hairs, at maturity thin and firm, dark green above, pale and glaucous below, 2′—4′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, with a yellow midrib and conspicuous reticulate veinlets; petioles reddish or yellow, ⅓′—½′ long; stipules often wanting or on vigorous shoots foliaceous, broadly ovate and acute. Flowers: aments cylindric, 1′—1½′ long, on short leafy branchlets, the staminate 1′—1¼′ long and ¾′ in diameter and shorter and broader than the pistillate ament; scales obovate, rose-colored, coated with long white hairs; stamens 2, with free filaments and reddish ultimately yellow anthers; ovary narrow-ovoid, long-stalked, gradually contracted above the middle, with a short style and emarginate stigmas. Fruit ovoid-conic, ¼′ long, dark orange color; pedicels ⅙′ in length.
Usually a shrub, often making clumps of crowded slender erect stems generally destitute of branches except near the top, rarely arborescent, with a height of 25°, a trunk 12′—14′ in diameter, erect branches, and comparatively stout reddish brown branchlets becoming olive-green in their second year and marked with narrow slightly raised leaf-scars. Winter-buds acute, much-compressed, bright scarlet, very lustrous, about ¼′ long. Bark thin, smooth, dull gray.
Distribution. Cold wet bogs; Newfoundland and the coast of Labrador to the valley of the Saskatchewan and the Mackenzie, and British Columbia, and to northern Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Michigan, and northeastern South Dakota; reported to become arborescent only near Fort Kent on the St. John River, Aroostook, Maine.
18. [Salix amplifolia] Cov.
Leaves oval to broadly obovate, rounded or broadly pointed at apex, gradually or abruptly narrowed at the cuneate base, dentate-serrulate or entire, densely villose when they unfold, with long matted white hairs, at maturity nearly glabrous, pale yellow-green above, slightly glaucous below, 2′—2½′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, with a midrib broad and hoary-tomentose toward the base of the leaf and thin and glabrous above the middle; petioles slender, tomentose. Flowers: aments appearing about the middle of June, stout, pedunculate, tomentose, on leafy branchlets, the staminate 1½′—2′ long and shorter than the pistillate; scales oblanceolate or lanceolate, dark brown or nearly black, covered with long pale hairs; stamens 2, with slender elongated glabrous filaments; ovary ovoid-lanceolate, short-stalked, glabrous or slightly pubescent, gradually narrowed into the elongated slender style crowned with a 2-lobed slender stigma. Fruit ovoid-lanceolate, glabrous, short-stalked, ¼′ long.