Salix aegyptiaca L.

Tall shrub or tree 2.5-10 m, persistently grey tomentose, wood striate. Flowering buds ovoid, 6-9 x 4-6 mm, obtuse to shortly acuminate. Leaf stipulate, stipule reniform or semicordate, 1.5-6 mm, caducous; petiole 4-12 mm; lamina obovate to elliptic-lanceolate, 5-15 x 3-6 cm, about half as broad as long, acute to obtuse, margin sinuate-erose and glandular dentate, gray adpressed-hairy beneath, glabrescent to puberulous above. Catkins numerous, closely spaced, densely villous, precocious; staminate subsessile, ovoid to subcylindrical with long white hairs. Bract 2-3.5 mm, 1.5-3 mm long hairs over-topping the bracts. Stamens 2, distinct, glabrous, filaments 7-10 mm long, anther 0.7-1 mm long. Female catkin 4-6 x 1-1.5 cm, borne on a long leafy-bracted stalk, bract as in the male catkin, gland one, entire, rarely 2 lobed, ovary tomentose. Capsule 7-9 mm, pedicel c. 2 mm in fruit.

Distribution: Turkey-South-Eastern Anatolia (Provinces Bitlis, Hakkiari), South-Eastern Transcaucasia (Zangezur, Karabagh), Northern Persia, widely cultivated in Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc. A. K. Skvortsov, l.c.

Fl. Per.: March.

S. caprae auct. non L.: Hook.f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 5: 629. 1888; Parker, For. Fl. Punj. ed. 3: 507. 1956.