丑柳 chou liu

Shrubs small. Branchlets thin; juvenile branchlets white or yellowish downy or tomentose, glabrescent. Petiole rust-colored pubescent; leaf blade elliptic, 2-4.5 × 1-2.2 cm, abaxially greenish or whitish, yellowish or rust-colored downy, adaxially bright green, yellow pubescent along veins when young, base rounded, margin indistinctly glandular dentate, apex apiculate; lateral veins 6-8 on each side of midvein, raised abaxially. Flowering coetaneous. Male catkin cylindric, 2-6 cm × 3-5(-7) mm; peduncle short, with 2-4 leaflets; bracts greenish yellow or slightly brown, suborbicular, glabrous or abaxially pubescent at base, ca. 1 mm. Male flower: adaxial and abaxial glands shortly terete; stamens 2; filaments distinct, ca. 2 mm, downy at least to middle; anthers yellow, subglobose. Fruiting catkin 8-10 mm wide; bracts suborbicular, abaxially sparsely villous or glabrous, adaxially glabrous. Female flower: gland adaxial; ovary ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm, white downy or glabrous; style short; stigma 2-lobed. Capsule russet, ovoid-oblong, to 4 mm. Fl. Apr, fr. May-Jun.

* Valleys, mountain slopes, roadsides; circa 2000 m. Yunnan

Similar to Salix praticola but bracts glabrous. A hybrid between S. guebriantiana (as S. tetradenia) and S. inamoena was recorded by Handel-Mazzetti (Symb. Sin. 7: 71. 1929); it was treated in FRPS under the invalid name S. inamoena var. glabra C. F. Fang.