Flora of New Zealand Series

broadleaf willow

Shrub or small tree to 1-6-(c. 10) m high; bark grey, ± smooth; habit dense and bushy. Shoots green or olive-green, soon glabrous, not brittle, not striated below bark. Buds shining brown, glabrous. Petiole 5-17 mm long. Lamina 4-11 × 1.5-4 cm, oblong-lanceolate or oblong-obovate, glaucous below, sericeous beneath at first but soon glabrous, bitter to taste, glandular-serrulate; angle between midrib and lateral veins > 45°; apex rounded to acute. Stipules small, broad, denticulate. Catkins mostly ♀, rarely ♂, produced on short leafy shoots slightly before or as lvs emerge; rachis villous. ♂ catkins broad-cylindric, erect to spreading; stamens 2; filaments hairy towards base. ♀ catkins to 5 cm long at anthesis, broadly cylindric. Bracts 1.5-2 mm long, ± obovate, black in upper ?-3/4, with dense tuft of long silky hairs; apex rounded to truncate. Gland 1, 0.6-0.8 mm long, ± elliptic-oblong or broadly linear. Ovary glabrous, stalked.

S.: Craigieburn Mountains and Waimakariri R. near Christchurch (Canterbury).

Coastal N.E. U.S.A. and Canada 1983

Streamsides.

FL Sep-Oct.

Broadleaf willow has been introduced to a number of montane areas where it has been planted on open banks and other unstable habitats with considerable success. It is occasionally planted by rivers in lowland E. South Id areas. In the Craigieburn Mountains plantings have covered considerable areas of scree. Until recently only ♀ plants were known in N.Z., but there are now a few ♂ plants in the main area of the Craigieburns where the sp. was introduced by the N.Z. Forest Service. In addition, the seedlings recently found on a stream bank in the vicinity are almost certainly of this sp. and not hybrids of it with one or more of the other willow spp. in the area. Its bitter-tasting lvs render it unpalatable to stock. In N.Z. this sp. has mostly been known as S. piperi, but this is a distinct western N. American sp.