Salix cinerea
Common name
grey willow, pussy willow
Family
Salicaceae
Flora category
Vascular – Exotic
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
SALCIN
Brief description
Deciduous shrub or small tree up to 7 m tall, many branched forming dense thickets with grey or green-grey bark, leaves up to 7 x 3.5 cm, pale green on upper surface, grey below, flowers of two types produced in spring before the leaves on separate plants, the males being silky hairy catkins, often yellow due to pollen production, the female catkins being longer and silvery green.
Distribution
Widespread and locally abundant throughout both islands but rare in the Far North, South Westland and Southland
Habitat
Swamps, fens, water body margins and disturbed places.
Features
Shrub or small tree to approx. 7m high, often only 1~2m, spreading or often forming dense thickets; bark rather smooth. Shoots not brittle; grey or greenish-grey and remaining hairy, or reddish to dark purple and often becoming glabrous or glabrate, generally with pale brown markings and striations prominent below surface for around 2 years. Buds reddish, glabrate or hairy. Petiole to about 1cm long on adult shoots, but often very short and hairy. Lamina 2~7 x 1.5~3.5cm, often smaller at base of lateral shoots, generally obovate, sometimes elliptic, not bitter to taste; grey or glaucous below, generally densely clothed in soft grey hairs, sometimes rather sparsely clothed in harsher reddish-brown hairs, soon glabrous and shining above except for midrib, glandular-serrulate to subentire; angle between midrib and veins > 45¦; apex rounded to cuspidate. Stipules semi-annular, small, persisting on strong vegetative shoots. Catkins appearing before leaves, 1.5~3.5cm long, broad-cylindric to clindric-ovate, generally erect; rachis villous. Bracts 1.5~3mm long, elliptic to oblong-obovate, black in upper half, sericeous; apex obtuse to rounded. Gland .5~.8mm long, rectangular to almost square. Stamens 2; filaments pilose towards base. Female flowers with pedicels > bracts; ovary white-tomentose, stalked.
Similar taxa
Leaves are broader then most other common willows, the combination of obovate leaf shape and grey-hairy undersides should distinguish this from all other willows.
Flowering
September to October
Flower colours
Green, Yellow
Fruiting
October to November
Life cycle
Perennial. shrub. Seed dispersed by wind, water and contaminated machinery.
Year naturalised
1925
Origin
Europe, West Asia and North Africa
Reason for introduction
Ornamental shrub
Control techniques
Can be controlled manually, mechanically or herbicidally depending on situation.
Etymology
cinerea: Ash-grey
Attribution
Factsheet prepared by Paul Champion and Deborah Hofstra (NIWA). Features description from Webb et. al. (1988).
References and further reading
Webb, C.J.; Sykes, W.R.; Garnock-Jones, P.J. (1988). Flora of New Zealand Volume 4: Naturalised pteridophytes, gymnosperms, dicotyledons. Botany Division, DSIR, Christchurch.
Popay et al (2010). An illustrated guide to common weeds of New Zealand, third edition. NZ Plant Protection Society Inc, 416pp.
Johnson PN, Brooke PA (1989). Wetland plants in New Zealand. DSIR Field Guide, DSIR Publishing, Wellington. 319pp.