A tree, occasionally 25° high, with a trunk a foot in diameter, and stout branchlets conspicuously roughened by the large elevated U-shaped leaf-scars, and marked by occasional pale lenticels, coated at first with thick villose pubescence, becoming during their second and third years dark dull reddish purple.
Distribution. Sand dunes on the shores of Yakutat Bay and Disenchantment Bay, Alaska.
19. Salix alaxensis Cov. Feltleaf Willow.
Leaves elliptic-lanceolate to obovate, acute, acuminate or occasionally rounded at apex, gradually narrowed into a short thick petiole, coated above as they unfold with thin pale deciduous tomentum and covered below with a thick mass of snowy white lustrous hairs persistent on the mature leaves, entire, often somewhat wrinkled, dull yellow-green above, 2′—4′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, with a broad yellow midrib; stipules linear-lanceolate to filiform, entire, ½′—¾′ long, usually persistent until midsummer. Flowers: aments appearing in June when the leaves are nearly fully grown, stout, erect, tomentose, stalked, on leafy branchlets, the staminate 1′—1½′ long, much shorter than the pistillate; scales oblong-ovate, rounded at apex, dark-colored, and coated with long silvery white soft hairs; stamens 2, with slender elongated filaments; ovary acuminate, short-stalked, covered with soft pale hairs, gradually narrowed into the elongated slender style, with 2-lobed stigmas. Fruit nearly sessile, ovoid, acuminate covered with close dense pale tomentum, ¼′ long.
A tree, sometimes 30° high, with a trunk 4′—6′ in diameter, and stout branchlets thickly coated at first with matted white hairs, becoming in their second year glabrous, dark purple, lustrous, marked by large elevated pale scattered lenticels and much roughened by large U-shaped leaf-scars; often shrubby, and in the most exposed situations frequently only a foot or two high, with semiprostrate stems.
Distribution. Coast of Alaska from the Alexander Archipelago to Cape Lisbourne, and eastward to the valley of the Mackenzie River and to the shores of Coronation Gulf; the only arborescent Willow in the coast region west and north of Kadiak Island; attaining its largest size from the Shumagin Islands eastward.