Distribution. River banks, sand bars and alluvial flats; shores of Lake St. John, Quebec to Manitoba, and southward through western New England to northeastern Virginia, southern Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, western Kentucky, south Tennessee, to the mouth of the Mississippi River, and westward to southwestern South Dakota, southwestern Wyoming, northeastern Colorado, western Kansas and Oklahoma, and northern Texas.
From central and northwestern Texas to northeastern Mexico and southern New Mexico represented by var. _angustissima_ Anders., differing in the absence of a dorsal gland in the male flowers and in the silky pubescence of the young ovary.
In the northern Rocky Mountains region replaced by var. _pedunculata_ Anders., differing from the type in its narrower linear leaves, glabrous ovaries and longer pedicels of the fruit, and ranging from western South Dakota and northwestern Wyoming, through eastern Montana, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, to the valley of the Yukon River in the neighborhood of Dawson.
A shrubby form with leaves densely covered with silky pubescence (var. _Wheeleri_ Schn.) is distributed from New Brunswick to North Dakota, Nebraska and Beckham County, Oklahoma.
14. Salix lasiolepis Benth. Arroyo Willow.
Leaves oblanceolate to lanceolate-oblong, often inequilateral and occasionally falcate, acute or acuminate or rarely rounded at apex, gradually or abruptly cuneate or rounded at base, entire or remotely serrate, pilose above and coated below with thick hoary tomentum when they unfold, at maturity thick and subcoriaceous, conspicuously reticulate-venulose, dark green and glabrous above, pale or glaucous and pubescent or puberulous below, 3′—6′ long, ½′—1′ wide, with a broad yellow midrib and slender arcuate veins forked and united within the slightly thickened and revolute margins; petioles slender, ⅛′—½′ long; stipules ovate, acute, coated with hoary tomentum, minute and caducous, or sometimes foliaceous, semilunar, acute or acuminate, entire or denticulate, dark green above, pale below, persistent. Flowers: aments erect, cylindric, slightly flexuose, densely flowered, nearly sessile on short tomentose branchlets, 1½′ long, the staminate ½′ thick, and nearly twice as thick as the pistillate; scales oblong-obovate, rounded or acute at the apex, dark-colored, clothed with long crisp white hairs, persistent under the fruit; stamens 2, with elongated glabrous filaments more or less united below the middle; ovary narrow, cylindric acute and long-pointed, dark green, glabrous, with a short style and broad nearly sessile stigmas. Fruit oblong-cylindric, light reddish brown, about ¼′ long.