Salix nigra Marshall

Black Willow

Tree

Perennial

Vascular

Black Willow is a native deciduous tree in the Willow family (Salicaceae). It is found throughout Alabama. Black 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 40-60 feet in height and often has multiple trunks. Young twigs are green to reddish in color and glabrous or pubescent. The bark on older stems and the trunk is dark brown to brownish gray in color and fissured into flat plates. Leaves are alternate, petiolate, narrowly elliptic to narrowly lanceolate in outline, with serrate margins. The leaves are glabrous above and glabrous or pubescent along the veins below. The leaves are not glaucous. 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. Willow bark contains salicin and has been used in traditional medicine to make a tea for pain relief and to reduce fevers. Salicin would later form the basis for the discovery of aspirin. Black Willow is fast growing and roots readily from cuttings. It is used to stabilize stream banks. The young limbs are flexible and have been used to make furniture. The wood of larger trees is light but weak and brittle. It is used to make pallets, artificial limbs, and inexpensive furniture.-- A. Diamond

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Native OBL (NWPL)

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