Salix gracilistyla Miq.
Shrub to c. 2 m high, forming dense thickets; bark smooth. Shoots white-villous when young, not brittle, lacking striations below bark. Buds densely silky hairy. Petiole 5-10 mm long. Lamina 5-10 × 1-3 cm, elliptic or lanceolate-elliptic, greyish and densely clothed in appressed hairs beneath, eventually glabrous above excluding midrib, not bitter to taste, glandular-serrulate; lateral veins often > 15, close and prominent; angle between midrib and lateral veins < 45°; apex acute. Stipules to 1.5 cm long, obliquely oblong-ovate, hairy, at least below, glandular-serrulate, persistent. Catkins ♂, appearing before lvs, subsessile, 3-4 cm long, broad-cylindric, ± erect; rachis hairy. Bracts c. 2.5 mm long, rhombic to obovate, black in upper part, densely silky hairy, acuminate. Gland 1, c. 1 mm long, ± linear. Stamen 1, glabrous.
N.: from N. Auckland to Hawke's Bay.
Japan, Korea, China 1983
Roadsides, especially in valley bottoms.
FL Aug-Sep.
S. gracilistyla occasionally forms dense suckering thickets and can be expected to spread more in the future. It has been mostly planted as an ornamental shrub but is occasionally used on unstable riverbanks and roadsides. Only ♂ plants occur in N.Z.
This sp. is easily recognised by a combination of lf characters: the large persistent stipules and the large number of prominent lateral veins at < 45° to the midrib of the lamina.
