Calodendron

Salix xcalodendron

Alternative Name(s): Pussy Willow

Family: Salicaceae. Genus: Salix. Subgenus: Vetrix ('shrub' willows).

Form: Tree

Origin: A sterile hybrid from cultivation in Europe.

Flowers/Seedhead: Plants female. Flower spikes (catkins) to 8 cm long and about 1 cm wide, cylindrical, evidently sterile, appearing before leaves in spring.

Description: Shrub or small tree to about 10 m high. Bark more or less smooth on branches, slightly fissured on trunk. Leaves broad-lanceolate to elliptic, to 10 cm long, to 3 cm wide, dull green above, felted with ash-grey hairs below at first, more or less hairy when mature, margins finely-toothed.

Distinguishing features: Distinguished by erect multistemmed habit; twigs with a dense covering of brownish, short, woolly hairs until second year, wood under bark often with a few ridges; leaves not bitter to taste.

Dispersal: Spread by layering and rooting of detached branches or twigs.

Confused With: Other shrub willows of the subgenus Vetrix, particularly Salix cinerea and Salix ×reichardtii.