GREY WILLOW – Salix cinerea: [ 26 & 53 ]
Grows to 10m and is very similar to the goat willow. Grey-brown bark with fissures and twigs that can appear red-yellow. Leaves are oval approx. twice the length of the width. They are white and felty underneath with rusty hairs along the veins. Catkins grow on different trees; males are grey and oval;
females are longer and green. Wind pollination turns the female catkins into woolly seeds. Eaten by caterpillars and foraged by birds, providing nectar in the spring and the food plant for the purple emperor butterfly. As with other willow it is a source of salicin which is used as a painkiller.
Grows to 10m and is very similar to the goat willow. Grey-brown bark with fissures and twigs that can appear red-yellow. Leaves are oval approx. twice the length of the width. They are white and felty underneath with rusty hairs along the veins. Catkins grow on different trees; males are grey and oval;
females are longer and green. Wind pollination turns the female catkins into woolly seeds. Eaten by caterpillars and foraged by birds, providing nectar in the spring and the food plant for the purple emperor butterfly. As with other willow it is a source of salicin which is used as a painkiller.
