Laurel willow

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Laurel willow
Laurel willow, Northern England

Laurel willow, Northern England

Systematics
Rosids
Eurosiden I
Order : Malpighiales (Malpighiales)
Family : Willow family (Salicaceae)
Genre : Willows ( Salix )
Type : Laurel willow
Scientific name
Salix pentandra
L.

The bay willow ( Salix pentandra ) is a plant from the genus of willow ( Salix ).

description

The laurel willow is a deciduous tree that reaches heights of up to 15 meters, more rarely a shrub . The trunk is dark gray, the bark is longitudinally fissured. The bark of young twigs is yellowish to reddish brown, shiny and bare.

leaves

The leaves are lanceolate with the greatest width in the middle, briefly pointed and wedge-shaped running into the petiole. Their edge is flat, regularly finely and glandularly serrated. The glands are sticky and give off a balsamic scent when exposed to sunlight. The upper side of the leaf is lively dark green and very shiny, the underside is lighter and bluish-green. Both sides are bare. The leaf blade is 3 to 13 cm long and 2 to 4 cm wide. The petiole is 2 to 14 millimeters long, glabrous and covered with 2 to 5 glands. Stipules are rare, they only occur on long shoots.

The laurel willow is dioecious, separate sexes ( diocesan ). The cylindrical catkins are stalked 2 to 3 centimeters long. Male kittens are 2 to 4 (rarely up to 7) cm in length and 1 to 1.2 cm in diameter, they have four to eight (up to twelve) stamens , which are hairy in the lower half, and two nectar glands . The female kittens have a length of 2 to 6 cm and a diameter of 8 mm, a short-stalked, cone-shaped, bare ovary with long cleaved stylus and usually bent scars branches on. The bract is single-colored, light, the outside is curly haired in the lower part, the tip is bald and not bearded. The bract is half as long as the stamen in male flowers, as long as the ovary in female flowers and falls off after the flowering period. There are two nectar glands in both sexes, with the rear one being larger.

The flowering period extends from June to July, after the leaves have unfolded. The laurel willow is the last flowering pasture in the Alps.

The shiny fruit is 9 mm and ripens between August and September.

The number of chromosomes is n = 38.

Occurrence

The bay willow is a Eurasian willow, it occurs from England and Eastern Europe to Western Siberia, as well as in the Caucasus. This species is rare in the Pyrenees and Apennines.

The main occurrences are to be found in swamp and alluvial forests, as well as on the gravel-sandy, permanently moist alluvial surfaces of the rivers, secondary occurrences can be found in tall herbaceous meadows and shrubbery in the mountains as well as nutrient-poor moors and bog forests. It is a character species of Salicetum pentandrae from the association Salicion cinereae, but also occurs in societies of the associations Salicion albae, Alno-Ulmion or the order Adenostyletalia. It likes to thrive on soaky to waterlogged, nutrient-rich and base-rich, neutral to moderately acidic, musty-peaty humic or raw, sandy-gravelly clay soils.

supporting documents

literature

  • Gunter Steinbach (Ed.): Shrub trees (Steinbach's natural guide). Mosaik Verlag GmbH, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-576-10560-3 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ floraweb.de
  2. ^ Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . With the collaboration of Angelika Schwabe and Theo Müller. 8th, heavily revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 2001, ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 , pp.  305 .

Web links

Commons : Laurel Willow ( Salix pentandra )  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files