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Species: Salix eleagnos Scop.

(Salix eleagnos Scop.)
-> Genus: Salix -> Family: Salicaceae -> Group: Angiosperms

Habitus

  • shrub to low tree growing to a height of 8 - 10 (15) m
  • the bork is gray, smooth, only slightly cracked at the base later
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow)
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - the bork
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - as part of the riparian vegetation of the alpine river Belá

Buds

  • they are built in a spiral, slightly piled up towards the end of the year shoot
  • they are oblong, flattened, blunt-pointed, pressed to a twig
  • cover scales are brown to greenish-brown
  • basically, flower buds do not differ in size from leaf buds
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - buds, twigs piled towards the end
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow)
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - the buds

Shoots

  • they are thin, yellowish-brown to reddish, young whitish-hairy
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - annual shoot (annual growth)

Leaves (assimilation organs)

  • the leaves are simple, linear-lanceolate to narrowly linear, 5 -12 x 0.7 - 1.2 cm in size, the widest ones are in the upper third
  • white-tomentose on the reverse, young leaves are on the upper side – later glabrous
  • the edge of the leaf is glandular-serrated
  • edges are rolled up
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - twig with leaves – underside
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - twig with leaves - top side
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - top side
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - underside (edges underneath rolled up)

Flowers

  • it is dioecious tree species
  • flowers are catkins
  • it blooms IV - V, simultaneously with foliage, or just before foliage
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - female (♀) catkins
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - male (♂) catkins
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - male (♂) catkins

Fruits – seeds

  • the fruit is a capsule
  • the seed is a Downy Achene
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - capsules grouped in fringed fruits
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - bursting capsules releasing downy achenes

Extension

  • Central, Southern and South-Eastern Europe, Asia Minor and North-West Africa
  • in Slovakia, it grows along streams and rivers in mountainous areas from 300 m above the  sea level to 1,200 m above the  sea level.
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - riparian stands of grey willow on the Belá River in the section near Liptovský Hrádok
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - one of the first to collect fresh alluvial deposits on mountain rivers
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - one of the first to occupy alluvial gravel benches together with purple willow (Salix purpurea) or German myric willow (Myricaria germanica)

Ecology

  • it mostly grows on gravel alluvial deposits of foothill rivers
  • it also grows on waterlogged, neutral, often calcareous, stony, sandy and loamy soils
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - as part of riparian vegetation Belá River
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - on an island in the bed of the Belá River

Significance

  • soil protection, soil strengthening
  • ameliorative tree
  • landscape-forming element (e.g. in spring during flowering)
  • decorative with its leaves
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - as one of the first to occupy alluvial gravel benches together with purple willow (Salix purpurea) or German myricow willow) on the alpine river Belá
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - as a landscape-forming element
Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - as a landscape-forming element 5/2022

From history

Salix eleagnos (Gray willow) - Unsere Waldbäume, Sträucher und Zwergholzgewächse. Heidelberg, Carl Winter`s Universitätsbuchhandlung
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