Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

21. Salicaceae, the Willow Family

2. Salix L. -- Willow

10. Salix lucida Muhl. -- Shining willow


Shrub or small tree to 4 m tall; twigs gray to yellowish-brown; branchlets ascending, yellowish-brown to dark brown, glabrous. Leaves yellowish-green to green and semiglossy above, pale beneath, initially reddish-pubescent, soon glabrous, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, acuminate to long-acuminate and asymmetric at the tip, broadly cuneate to nearly rounded at the base, 4-8(12) cm long, 1.2-2.5(4) cm wide, finely glandular-serrate; petioles glandular above, usually with few to several lobate glands, 0.5-1.5(2) cm long; stipules often persistent for some time toward the tips of branchlets, flabellate, well-developed ones 2-3 mm long, 2-4 mm wide, strongly glandular. Catkins produced with the leaves; female catkins 1-3 cm long, on leafy branchlets 1-3 cm long; bracts deciduous, yellowish, pubescent; stamens 3-5 or more. Capsules ovoid with a long neck, 4-6.5 mm long, glabrous; stipes 0.5-1.5 mm long. Flowering May, fruiting Jun. Swamps, shores and wet meadows; fairly common in the Turtle Mts., ND, otherwise rare in e ND and the Black Hills; (Labr. and Newf. to Sask., s to DE, OH, IA and SD).

Many earlier accounts of S. lucida were based largely on misidentified specimens of S. amygdaloides.

GIF- Distribution Map

Map key


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