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Montana Field Guides

White Willow - Salix alba

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Non-native Species

Global Rank: G5
State Rank: SNA
C-value: 0


Agency Status
USFWS:
USFS:
BLM:


 

External Links

 
General Description
Tree to 20 meters tall. Branchlets spreadking; golden-yellow to organge, brittle and easily breaking at base. Petioles 0.5-1.5 cm long. Leaf blades 4-10 cm long, up to 2.5 cm wide, narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate, dark green and shiny above, white-glaucous and glabrous to sparsely hairy below; margins serrate with 7-10 glandualr teeth per cm of margin. Catkins appearing with leaves; pistillate catkins 3-6 cm long, on leafy branchlets, 1-3(-5) cm long. Capsules 3.5-5 mm long, ovoid-conic, glabrous, sessile or on stipes to 1 mm long (adapted from: Larson, 1986, Flora of the Great Plains).

Range Comments
Sporadically across North America, especially in northeast; non-native from Eurasia.

Observations in Montana Natural Heritage Program Database
Number of Observations: 154

(Click on the following maps and charts to see full sized version) Map Help and Descriptions
Relative Density

Recency

 

(Observations spanning multiple months or years are excluded from time charts)



Habitat
Introduced; escaping to wet areas from shelter belts and ornamental plantings (Larson, 1986, Flora of the Great Plains).

Ecology
POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus vagans, Bombus bifarius, Bombus fervidus, Bombus frigidus, Bombus huntii, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus ternarius, Bombus terricola, Bombus sitkensis, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus bimaculatus, Bombus griseocollis, Bombus impatiens, and Bombus suckleyi (Plath 1934, Macior 1968, Heinrich 1976, Thorp et al. 1983, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Colla et al. 2011, Koch et al. 2012, Williams et al. 2014).

Management

References
  • Literature Cited AboveLegend:   View Online Publication
    • Colla, S., L. Richardson, and P. Williams. 2011. Bumble bees of the eastern United States. Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, Pollinator Partnership. 103 p.
    • Colla, S.R. and S. Dumesh. 2010. The bumble bees of southern Ontario: notes on natural history and distribution. Journal of the Entomological Society of Ontario 141:39-68.
    • Koch, J., J. Strange, and P. Williams. 2012. Bumble bees of the western United States. Washington, DC: USDA Forest Service, Pollinator Partnership. 143 p.
    • Macior, L.M. 1968. Bombus (Hymenoptera, Apidae) queen foraging in relation to vernal pollination in Wisconsin. Ecology 49:20-25.
    • Plath, O.E. 1934. Bumblebees and their ways. New York, NY: Macmillan Company. 201 p.
    • Thorp, R.W., D.S. Horning, and L.L. Dunning. 1983. Bumble bees and cuckoo bumble bees of California (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Bulletin of the California Insect Survey 23:1-79.
    • Williams, P., R. Thorp, L. Richardson, and S. Colla. 2014. Bumble Bees of North America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 208 p.
  • Additional ReferencesLegend:   View Online Publication
    Do you know of a citation we're missing?
    • Argus, G. 2010. Salix. In: Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 16+ vols. New York and Oxford. Vol. 7.
    • Dorn, R.D. 2010. The genus Salix in North America north of Mexico. 59 pp.
    • Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2012. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 771 p.
    • Lesica, P., M.T. Lavin, and P.F. Stickney. 2022. Manual of Montana Vascular Plants, Second Edition. Fort Worth, TX: BRIT Press. viii + 779 p.
    • Little, E.L., Jr. 1979. Checklist of United States trees (native and naturalized). Agriculture Handbook No. 541. U.S. Forest Service, Washington, D.C. 375 pp.
  • Web Search Engines for Articles on "White Willow"
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Citation for data on this website:
White Willow — Salix alba.  Montana Field Guide.  .  Retrieved on , from