Salix caroliniana Michx.

Carolina Willow; Coastal Plain Willow; Ward's Willow

Tree

Perennial

Vascular

Carolina Willow is a native deciduous tree in the Willow family (Salicaceae). It can be found throughout Alabama. Carolina Willow is typically a small, fast growing tree of river and stream banks, swamps, pond and lake margins, and other disturbed wetlands. It grows from 15-30 feet in height and often has multiple trunks. Young twigs are yellowish-green to reddish-brown in color and glabrous or pubescent. The bark on older stems and the trunk is dark reddish-brown to brownish gray in color and fissured into flat plates. Leaves are alternate, petiolate, lanceolate in outline, with serrate margins. The leaves are glabrous above and dark green in color. The lower surface of the leaf is glaucous and glabrous or pubescent along the veins. Flowers are produced in catkins from the leaf axils. Staminate catkins are yellow in color, and pistillate catkins are greenish. The fruit is a capsule. The wind dispersed seeds are very small and have a tuft of white hairs at their apex. Carolina Willow is much less common in Alabama than Black Willow (Salix nigra Marshall). The two species sometimes occur near each other and can form hybrids.—A. Diamond.

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Native OBL (NWPL) OD (WAP) OBL (DEP)

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