Salix ×calodendron Wimm.
Large shrub or small tree; bark rather smooth; habit rather erect. Shoots brownish, densely clothed in dark hairs in the first year, flexible, with few raised striations below bark. Buds densely hairy, deep brown. Petiole to 1.5 cm long. Lamina 4-15 × 0.8-4 cm, broad-lanceolate to elliptic or ± obovate, grey and tomentose beneath at first, ± hairy when mature, not bitter to taste, with midrib drying pinkish brown, hairy or glabrate above when mature (except for densely hairy midrib), finely glandular-serrulate; angle between midrib and veins > 45°; apex slender, usually acute. Stipules much broader than long. Catkins ♀, appearing before lvs, 2.5-5.5 cm long, erect, ± cylindric; rachis ± villous. Bracts 2-3.5 mm long, ± obovate, black in upper part, silky hairy; apex obtuse or rounded. Gland 1, 0.5-0.8 mm long, ± oblong. Ovary sessile, white-villous.
N.: Wairarapa; S.: Canterbury.
N. Europe 1983
Usually along streamsides or in swamps near original plantings.
FL Sep.
S. × calodendron is widely cultivated in N.Z. The parents are said to be the 2 sallows, S. caprea and S. cinerea, and the osier, S. viminalis. S. × calodendron has vegetative parts more like the sallows, whereas the catkins more closely resemble those of the osier. Only ♀ plants are present in N.Z., but there would seem to be more than one clone because there is some variation in the amount of hairiness of the vegetative parts. S. × sericans Kerner (S. caprea × S. viminalis) probably also grows wild but its status is uncertain. It resembles S. × calodendron except for the narrower, silkier lvs.
