Leaves lanceolate or oblanceolate, acuminate and long-pointed at apex, gradually narrowed from above the middle to the cuneate or rounded base, finely glandular-serrate, coated with pale hairs on the lower surface and pilose on the upper surface when they unfold, soon becoming nearly glabrous, at maturity thin and firm, dark green above, pale and often silvery white below, 4′—6′ long, 1′—1½′ wide, with slender veins often united near the margins and connected by coarse reticulate veinlets; petioles stout, pubescent or tomentose, ½′—¾′ long; stipules foliaceous, semicordate, pointed or rarely reniform and obtuse, serrate with incurved teeth, dark green and glabrous on the upper side, coated on the lower with hoary tomentum, reticulate-venulose, often ½′ long, deciduous or persistent during the season. Flowers: aments oblong-cylindric, densely flowered, appearing early in February on short leafy branchlets, the staminate 1½′ long and nearly ½′ wide and rather longer than the more slender pistillate aments becoming at maturity lax and 3′—4′ long; scales oblong-obovate, light green, and covered on the outer surface with long straight white hairs; stamens 2, with elongated free glabrous filaments; ovary cylindric, short-stalked, beaked, glabrous, with a short style and spreading entire or slightly emarginate stigmas. Fruit narrow, long-pointed, light reddish brown, ⅓′ in length; pedicels about half the length of the scales. A tree, 40°—50° high, with a tall straight trunk 10′—12′ or rarely 18′ in diameter, rather slender upright slightly spreading branches forming a narrow open symmetrical head, and slender branchlets marked by small scattered orange-colored lenticels, light green and coated during their first year with thick pale pubescence, becoming reddish brown and glabrous or puberulous in their second winter. Winter-buds ovoid, round, or flattened, acute at the apex, reddish brown, hoary-tomentose, nearly 1′ long. Bark thin, smooth, light gray, slightly tinged with red, and covered with minute closely appressed plate-like scales. Wood dark red-brown, with thin pale sapwood; durable, used for fence-posts. Distribution. Deep sandy alluvial bottom-lands of the Missouri River in southwestern Nebraska to western Missouri; through northeastern Kansas and eastern Oklahoma to Cache Creek, Comanche County (_G. W. Stevens_); and from the neighborhood of St. Louis to southeastern and western Iowa. 17. Salix pyrifolia Anders. _Salix balsamifera_ Barr. [Illustration: Fig. 151]