Flora of New Zealand Series

osier

Small tree with rather smooth trunk, or erect shrub to c. 8 m high, often suckering extensively; branches few. Shoots long, straight, flexible, green or yellowish green, densely hairy at first, later glabrous, lacking striations below bark. Buds white-tomentose. Petiole very short. Lamina 5-18 × 0.5-2 cm, linear to lanceolate, becoming glabrous and dark shining green above, silvery, usually greenish white, sometimes green beneath, ± silky hairy beneath, not bitter to taste; margins entire, often somewhat revolute; apex acuminate. Stipules small. Catkins appearing before or sometimes as lvs emerge, erect or suberect; rachis densely hairy or tomentose. ? catkins 1.5-4.5 cm long, cylindric. Bracts 1.2-3.2 mm long, obovate, or elliptic-obovate, black in upper 1/2-3/4, with long silky hairs, with acute apex. Gland 1 (sometimes 2-3 united), 0.6-1.2-(1.5) mm long, linear. Stamens 2, glabrous. ♀ catkins 2-5 cm long, cylindric; bracts and gland similar to ♂. Ovary sessile or subsessile, white-tomentose. Seed c. 1 mm long, cylindric.

N.: mainly Manawatu and Wellington areas; S.: Nelson, E. regions, especially Canterbury.

Temperate Eurasia 1940

Wet places, especially riverbanks, also street gutters.

FL Sep-Oct.

S. viminalis was introduced soon after the middle of the last century and planted on lakesides and riverbanks from Hawke's Bay southwards. It is sometimes used for basket making here as well as in Europe and is consequently now a garden plant here also. ♂ and ♀ plants occur in the same populations and sometimes large numbers of seedlings appear. Thus, S. viminalis is one of the few willows which freely set seed in N.Z. It is only likely to be confused with the much rarer S. elaeagnos, which is distinguished by the bitter-tasting lvs, tomentose on the lower surface, the dark shoots and glabrous ovary. S. viminalis sometimes hybridises with 2 sallows (see  S. × calodendron). However, this hybrid group is easily distinguished from S. viminalis by the striations beneath the bark of the shoots, the dark tomentum on the persistently hairy shoots, the conspicuous stipules and broad-lanceolate to elliptic, or obovate lvs.