Salix alba var. vitellina
(L.) Stokes Golden WillowSpreading tree to 15 m high or more; foliage most silvery early in the growing season; twigs orange-yellow, very conspicuous in winter but usually retaining a muted golden colour throughout the growing season; leaves becoming glabrescent, upper surfaces darker and more lustrous than in var. alba; inflorescences and flowers similar in Victorian material (although Meikle (1984) notes less hairy, narrower and longer catkin-scales in var. vitellina).
VVP, GipP, OtP, WaP, Gold, CVU, DunT, NIS. Also naturalised SA, NSW, ACT, Tas. Indigenous origins obscure, long cultivated in Britain and Europe. Naturalised in New Zealand. Very widely cultivated and vegetatively naturalized for the most part; plants are almost always female. Populations are frequent but not large as the twigs are not very brittle. Abundantly recruiting from seed in some locations (e.g. Broken River, north-east Victoria) but pollen donor is probably Salix fragilis nothovar. fragilis. Salix alba var. vitellina is one of the parents of S. fragilis nothovar. fragilis. It is also a parent of S. ×sepulcralis var. chrysocoma and several related hybrids of uncertain parentage.
A female clone of Salix alba var. caerulea (Sm.) Sm. (Cricket-bat Willow) of Britain and Europe is rarely cultivated in Victoria (e.g. Apollo Bay, Daylesford, Tambo River) and has not become naturalized. It is a very large pyramidal or spreading tree to 30 m high with lanceolate appressed-sericeous leaves, becoming glabrescent, dull blue-green above and strongly glaucous below. Fertile characters as for S. alba var. alba. A Cricket-bat Willow industry has recently been established.
Carr, G.W. (1996). Salix. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 3, Dicotyledons Winteraceae to Myrtaceae, pp. 387–398. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning