Salix alba
Salix alba
Ssp alba: Ak söğüt
Tall tree to 30 m; bark deeply fissured, greyish. Twigs slender, erect or drooping, brownish or reddish, not fragile, forming a narrow crown, adpressed-pilose when young, glabrescent; buds lanceolate-oblong, flattened, acute, to 6 x 1.5-2 mm, sericeous. Decorticated wood smooth. Leaves ± narrowly lanceolate, usually c. 6-7 x as long as wide, 5-10 x 1-3 cm, ± long-acuminate, finely serrate, silky adpressed-pilose when young, glabrescent; petiole 5-8 mm, eglandular. Stipules small, lanceolate, caducous. Catkins borne on leafy stalks, appearing with leaves, dense, cylindrical, often bisexual, rachis densely pubescent; male 25-50 x 3-4 mm before emergence of anthers, stamens 2, filaments hairy towards base, anthers 0.5-0.6 mm; female 3-5 x c. 0.6 cm, lax, nectaries 1 or 2, ovary ovoid-conical, obtuse, glabrous, subsessile at first; fruiting pedicels 0.2-0.8 mm, ± equalling nectary. Fl. 4-5. Edges oflakes, rivers and streams, nr s.l.-2000 m.
N.W. Africa, Europe , S.W. & C. Asia, W. Siberia. EuroSib. element.
