Salix lutea

Yellow willow

Family: Salicaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Yellow willow is a California native shrub found in central and eastern Sierra Nevada, San Bernardino Mountains, San Jacinto Mountains, Great Basin, and western Mojave Desert on river and creek margins, wet meadows at elevations of 640 to 3,100 meters. Flowering from March to May, this plant produces yellow-tinged catkins on leafy shoots, emerging just before or with the plant's leaves. Growing up to 7 meters tall with yellow-gray or yellow-brown twigs, it has a distinctive shrubby form with spreading branches. Its leaves are strap-shaped to elliptic, 42 to 90 millimeters long, with slightly serrated edges and soft, shaggy undersides that range from glabrous to silky in texture. The shrub bears distinctive leaf-like stipules and produces separate male and female flowers with two stamens in the male blossoms.

Habitat: River, creek margins, wet meadows

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: 640-3100 m

Bioregions: c&amps SNH (esp e slope), SnBr, SnJt, GB, w DMoj

California counties: San Bernardino, Mono, Tulare, Inyo, Kern, Modoc, El Dorado, Nevada, Riverside, Mariposa, Madera, Humboldt, Alpine, Marin, Plumas, Glenn, Butte, Lassen, Monterey

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.