Arroyo Willow

Fast-growing multi-stemmed deciduous shrub or small tree. Dark green broadly lance-shaped leaves 6 inches long, smooth or occasionally toothed margins, whitish beneath creating bicolored rippling effect. Smooth gray bark becoming fissured with age, yellowish to dark brown twigs. Suckering habit, often forms dense thickets. 

Dioecious with separate male and female plants. Fuzzy catkins appear with or before leaves late winter to late spring. Male catkins yellow pollen-releasing, female catkins green seed-producing. Primarily insect pollinated, severe allergen in spring. Tiny seeds (~1mm) embedded in tangled hairs, wind dispersed. Important early pollen source for beneficial insects, catkins and buds food for birds.

Native western North America from Washington to Baja California. Extremely important for many Indigenous California peoples: bark tea for pain/fever (contains salicylic acid/aspirin), inner bark for rope, shoots/branches for coiled and twined basketry, acorn storage baskets, building homes. Host plant Lorquin's admiral, mourning cloak, western tiger swallowtail butterflies.