PUSSY WILLOW (Salix discolor, Mueh I). Shrub to 25 feet. Open, round-topped tree, or many-stemmed shrub, with as tending branches and stout, red twigs, at first coated with pale pubescence. Bark reddish brown, checkedinto irregular plates with scaly surface. Wood light, soft, close-grained, brown. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, tapering at both ends, saw-toothed, thick, bright green, with pale or silvery lining, 3 to 5 inches long. Midribs broad, yellow. Petioles short, slender; stipules leaf-like, half-moon-shaped, deciduous. Flow
ers in erect, crowded spikes or catkins, with silky, silvery tufts of hair between the scales. Appearing before the leaves, in late winter or earliest spring. Fruit, bottle-shaped capsules, pale pubescent, with minute seeds. Dist.: Common in wet ground from Nova Scotia to Manitoba; south to Delaware and Missouri. Cut and forced into bloom in winter to supply florist trade.