Salix cinerea L.
grey willow
Shrub or small tree to c. 7 m high, often only 1-2 m, spreading or often forming dense thickets; bark rather smooth. Shoots not brittle, grey or greenish grey and remaining hairy, or reddish to dark purple and often becoming glabrous or glabrate, generally with pale brown markings and striations prominent below surface for c. 2 years. Buds reddish, glabrate or hairy. Petiole to c. 1 cm long on adult shoots, but often very short, hairy. Lamina 2-7 × 1.5-3.5 cm, often smaller at base of lateral shoots, generally obovate, sometimes elliptic, not bitter to taste, grey or glaucous below, generally ± densely clothed in soft grey hairs, sometimes rather sparsely clothed in harsher reddish brown hairs, soon glabrous and shining above except for midrib, glandular-serrulate to subentire; angle between midrib and veins > 45°; apex rounded to cuspidate. Stipules semi-annular, small, persisting on strong vegetative shoots. Catkins appearing before lvs, ? or ?, 1.5-3.5 cm long, broad-cylindric to cylindric-ovate, ± erect; rachis villous. Bracts 1.5-3 mm long, elliptic to oblong-obovate, black in upper 1/2, sericeous; apex obtuse to rounded. Gland 1, 0.5-0.8 mm long, ± rectangular to almost square. Stamens 2; filaments pilose towards base. ♀ fls with pedicels > bracts; ovary white-tomentose, stalked.
N.; S.: extensively naturalised in many places from N. Auckland southwards, especially in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and along the east of the South Id.
Europe, W. Asia, N. Africa 1925
Swamps, riverbanks, and wet areas behind coastal dunes.
FL Sep-Oct.
Grey willow, generally known as sallow in the British Isles and sometimes in N.Z., is abundant and often forms the dominant vegetation in swampy habitats. It was introduced to N.Z. early in the period of European settlement and was planted in many wet areas for soil reclamation and stabilisation. The taxonomy of this group of Salix is very complex and the above description embraces the free-seeding populations which occur in N.Z., but not the commonly cultivated, but also sometimes wild, ♂ clone of the hybrid between S. caprea and S. cinerea treated here as S. × reichardtii. Although S. caprea itself, goat willow, is sometimes planted and has been recorded wild in N.Z. many times during the past century, all such records refer to S. cinerea or S. × reichardtii.
Many N.Z. specimens of S. cinerea can be referred to the European subsp. oleifolia (Smith) Macreight, often treated at sp. rank as S. atrocinerea Brot. Such plants have dark shoots which are soon glabrate and lf laminas with some reddish brown hairs below. Some populations exhibit a range of shoot colour and hairiness of lvs among plants. There are intermediates between subspp. cinerea and oleifolia and it is therefore impractical to treat than separately. Plants with dark shoots have sometimes been known as S. nigricans in N.Z.; although similar, true S. nigricans Smith has lvs ± green beneath, turning blackish when dried, and has some lvs present with the catkins.
Many plants of S. cinerea have anthers that are orange or red, whereas they are always yellow in the other sallows in N.Z., including the hybrid S. × reichardtii.
