Description: Small tree with broadly conic crown, long slender, upswept branches with widely spaced, rather pendulous leaves. Old trees with heavy, twisted, low branches; broadly domed.

Height: 10-18 m

Diameter: 0.3-1 m

Leaves: Leaf slightly silky at first, soon smooth, narrowly lanceolate to finely tapered, often twisted point, 12 × 2 cm (up to 19×5cm); glabrous grey-green or glaucous beneath, rich glossy green above; petiole 1-2 cm.

Shoots: Pale orange shoots in March, before leaves appear. Turning yellow, then green-brown spreading very straight from larger shoot at 60° and snapping off cleanly at the base very readily. Bud yellow, pale green or brown, closely appressed, long-pointed conic.

Bark: Dull, dark grey; scaly when young, later a network of thick ridges.

Flowers: Dioecious. Male catkins yellow, 2-5 cm; female green, 10 cm by May; each fruit 7 mm, very slender, soon fluffy white.

Habitat: Abundant on lowland river banks and gravel beds, but also by streams and rivers in hilly regions.

Range: Throughout Europe except for the extreme north, east to W Siberia and south to Persia. Common in Britain.

Very often pollarded, when it produces osiers for wickerwork. Osier beds are important enough in the UK for the Ordnance survey to have a separate symbol for them.

Willows have freely spreading roots and are used to stabilise river banks. They are easily propagated by layering, and broken branches will often start new trees if the spring remains ungrazed.

Information: Mitchell (1988), MacDonald (1984)

Source: Weasdale Nurseries, Newbiggin-on-Lune.

Purchased: Autumn 1997, two trees at about ten feet each.

Planted: On southern boundary of property (one is actually outside the fence on our bank of the stream at D0D, the other at about D10C). One reason for using such large trees is to keep the tops out of reach of marauding cows in the adjacent field, which are a real problem when establishing trees here to stabilise the stream banks.

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