Salix fargesii Burkill

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Salix fargesii' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/salix/salix-fargesii/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

Genus

Glossary

ovary
Lowest part of the carpel containing the ovules; later developing into the fruit.
bract
Reduced leaf often subtending flower or inflorescence.
clone
Organism arising via vegetative or asexual reproduction.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
lanceolate
Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
midrib
midveinCentral and principal vein in a leaf.
ovary
Lowest part of the carpel containing the ovules; later developing into the fruit.
ovoid
Egg-shaped solid.
prostrate
Lying flat.
rachis
Central axis of an inflorescence cone or pinnate leaf.
style
Generally an elongated structure arising from the ovary bearing the stigma at its tip.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Salix fargesii' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/salix/salix-fargesii/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

A deciduous shrub, up to 10 ft high, of wide-spreading habit; young shoots stout, quite glabrous, brownish green, changing by the second year to a dark shining brown; winter buds bright red. Leaves elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, pointed, tapered at the base, finely toothed; 3 to 7 in. long, 114 to 5 in. wide, shining dark green above, wrinkled, and at first dull green beneath and silky hairy, especially on the midrib and veins; veins in fifteen to twenty-five pairs, deeply impressed above; stalk 12 to 34 in. long and of the same colour as the young shoots. Catkins erect on short, leafy, silky stalks; the females cylindric, up to 612 in. long, 14 in. in diameter, the males up to 412 in. long. Ovary glabrous, ovoid-cylindric; stigmas two, bilobed; bract oblong, rounded at the end, silky at the margin. Flowers in spring.

Native of central China; introduced by Wilson, who collected plants in W. Hupeh in November 1910 for the Arnold Arboretum, whence they (or cuttings from them) were distributed to Kew and other gardens. The plants came from woodlands near Fang Hsien at 6,000 to 8,000 ft, where S. fargesii, according to Wilson, makes a shrub 2 to 6 ft high and is often prostrate or procumbent (though in other localities he found it up to 10 ft high).

This fine, handsome willow is remarkable for its brightly coloured winter-buds, the dark glossiness of its younger bark, the large many-veined leaves, and slender, erect catkins. It is perfectly hardy, but the young growths are sometimes cut by frost. Most of the cultivated plants are female and probably belong to a clone originally distributed under the erroneous name S. hypoleuca. The species rightly so called (not treated here) was sent by Wilson under his number 4437, S. fargesii as number 4439.

S. fargesii is closely related to S. moupinensis (q.v.), and was described later. Schneider distinguished the two chiefly by two characters: in S. fargesii the rachis of the catkin and catkin-scales are densely long-hairy, glabrous or sparsely hairy in S. moupinensis; in S. fargesii the ovary is tapered into a long style, in S. moupinensis abruptly narrowed into a shorter style. Also the leaves of S. fargesii are more silky beneath; in S. moupinensis they are often quite glabrous. The young shoots of S. fargesii are stouter and the winter-buds larger, and, on the whole the marginal toothing of the leaves is finer than in S. moupinensis. The two are also separated geographically, S. moupinensis west of the Red Basin, in the Sino-Himalayan floristic region, S. fargesii east of the Red Basin, in E. Szechwan and Hupeh.