SAND-BAR WILLOW (Salix fluviatilis, Nutt). 20 to 30 feet. Slender tree or much-branched shrub, covering sandy shoals and mud flats. Bark dark brown, irregularly cut into scaly plates. Wood soft, pale brown, with thin, light-colored sap wood. Leaves very narrowly lanceolate, coarsely toothed, silky at first, smooth, bright green, paler beneath, 2 to 4 inches long, with raised, prominent midrib, short petiole, and minute, deciduous stipules. Flowers in slender, silky catkins, 1 to 3
inches, on separate trees. Fruit pale brown, ovoid capsules; seeds minute, winged with silk. Dist.: Quebec to Northwest Territory; south to Virginia, Kentucky, and New Mexico. Very common in Mississippi Valley.