Favoritos de cwbarrows

This determination is by no means 100%. I've never gone back in spring when there are fresh flowers to confirm the id.

It would be great if someone would visit this plant in May or early June, and photograph the ovaries to get the determination for sure. If the ovaries have hairs on them, it is S. scouleriana. If they have no hairs, it is S. lasiolepis.

S. scouleriana is by far the dominant Salix here. Keir Morse's friend Huang-chi asked about the determination of these trees, and I fortunately looked at these trees instead of just answering "S. scouleriana". (:-)

I was shocked when I saw the leaves looked much more like S. lasiolepis than S. scouleriana.

However, the leaves were very soft-silky underneath, which is typical of S. scouleriana (but still possible for S. lasiolepis), and S. scouleriana can have leaves that resemble S. lasiolepis in shape sometimes.

So I said we needed an infl to get the id for sure, and voila, Huang-chi produced some dead infl from these trees.

In the field, the fruit appeared glabrous, confirming S. lasiolepis. But with such old fruit, the hairs might have dropped off. I took a sample to study it further, voucher tchester1759.

observations:

twigs yellow-green, hairy

leaves look like typical S. lasiolepis leaves, elliptic and symmetric about middle (tip to bottom) to narrowly oblanceolate, some with a curve to them along their length. but the underneath sides of the leaves are very soft-hairy to the touch, like s. scouleriana.

petioles 5-7 mm. blades 61 x 13 mm; 62 x 11 mm; 58 x 12 mm. tips mostly acute, but some are obtuse. blade edges are somewhat turned down, but not as much as typical S. scouleriana. top surface shiny and green; bottom surface glaucous.

female catkins 30-40 x ~7 mm in fruit

fl bracts persistent, dark brown, densely hairy, body oblanceolate, rounded at tip, 1.9 x 0.8 mm, hairs extend 1.0 mm above body, hairs white, slightly wavy. the bracts look just like the jm2 illustration for S. lasiolepis.

ovary stalk 2.0-2.1 mm in fr, body 2.2-2.4 mm, style + stigma 0.8-0.9 mm. some styles are as short as 0.4 mm, but i don't know if they were broken off, since there are not stigmas attached.

body is glabrous, but the hairs can be deciduous in age, so it isn't 100% clear if this was their condition when fresh.

Using the Munz key, S. lutea and S. lemmonii are ruled out because their lvs are nearly glabrous underneath, and their lf blades are 1.5-4 cm wide and mostly 3-4 times longer. these leaves fit the Munz key perfectly for S. lasiolepis, of blades 1-2 cm wide and mostly ~5 x as long.

S. lemmonii and S. scouleriana are ruled out if the fruit lack of hairs can be trusted.

S. scouleriana also has leaf edges much more turned down than these leaves, and its flower bract has a different shape in the jm2 illustration.

Only S. lasiolepis fits the above, with just one problem - its styles are supposed to be 0.1-0.6 mm, whereas i definitely have some that are 0.8-0.9 mm. But that is a problem for the only other competing determination of S. scouleriana, too.