Salix caesia Vill.

A shrub of low straggling habit, 2 to 4 ft high, very leafy, with glabrous dark brown young branches; buds glabrous, yellow. Leaves rather stiff, oval or obovate, tapered at the base, pointed, often abruptly, at the apex, sometimes wavy but not toothed at the margin, 3⁄4 to 11⁄2 in. long, 3⁄8 to 7⁄8 in. wide (somewhat larger on strong shoots), perfectly glabrous on both sides, dull green above, bluish beneath; stalks very short, usually 1⁄8 in. or less long. Stipules usually minute. Catkins 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 in. long, produced in April or May on short leafy shoots; catkin-scales obtuse, thinly hairy. Filaments of stamens free or united for up to half their length. Ovary sessile or almost so, hairy; style about half as long as the ovary.

Native mainly of Siberia and Central Asia; also found in the Alps from the Dauphiné to the Vorarlberg and Tyrol, though nowhere occurring in quantity in that region; introduced in 1824. One of the most distinct of European willows, easily recognised by its glabrous, stiff, very short-stalked leaves, bluish beneath. It was at one time met with in gardens as “S. zabellii pendula”, being grafted on standards and in that way transformed into a small weeping tree – pretty, but, treated in this way, usually short-lived.