Salix × subalpina Forbes not A.Kern

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New article for Trees and Shrubs Online.

Recommended citation
'Salix × subalpina' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/salix/salix-x-subalpina/). Accessed 2025-07-12.

Family

  • Salicaceae

Genus

Glossary

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Credits

New article for Trees and Shrubs Online.

Recommended citation
'Salix × subalpina' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/salix/salix-x-subalpina/). Accessed 2025-07-12.

Editorial Note

POWO (19/5/2025) synonymises with Salix repens subsp. repens, but not on the basis of published research. We retain Bean’s nomeclature – see also the note to Salix × smithiana.

Said by Forbes (Salictum Woburnense, t. 93) to have been introduced from Switzerland. It is a low shrub of rather neat habit, branches ascending, downy, and retaining their down till the second year. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, usually tapered about equally at each end, 1 to 212 in. long, 14 to 58 in. wide, margins decurved; not or very slightly toothed towards the apex, bright green and downy (especially at first) above, permanently grey and woolly beneath; stalk 16 in. or less long. In his original description Forbes mentions having only seen the male. Catkins 1 to 114 in. long, slender, yellow.

As remarked in previous editions, the plants cultivated at Kew and Cambridge were also male; most probably they originated by vegetative propagation from the Woburn plant. But Forbes’ name is accepted as the valid one for hybrids between S. elaeagnos and S. repens, which occur occasionally in the wild.