Salix ×pendulina
Wender Weeping WillowWeeping tree to 18 m high, trunk short, crown often wider than high; bark grey-brown, ultimately very dark brown and deeply fissured; outer branches, twigs and shoots weeping, moderately to very long-pendulous; twigs very slender, moderately fragile; initially very sparsely pilose, soon glabrous or almost so, lustrous, deep blackish-brown, olive-brown or green to pale greenish-brown; buds at first thinly appressed-villous, soon glabrous, lustrous, deep chestnut to pale brown. Leaves lanceolate, ovate-lanceolate to broadly ovate, 7.5–14.0 cm long, 1.5–4.4 cm wide, soon glabrous, lustrous, deep green above, glaucous or glaucescent below; apex (acute to) acuminate or long-acuminate; base cuneate or rounded; margins relatively coarsely and irregularly toothed, at least some teeth glandular but sometimes minutely so; stipules ovate-acuminate, to 3 mm or more long, margins glandular-toothed, upper surface with scattered or dense sessile glands. Plants male or female; catkins on short or very short, leafy or hardly leafy branches; male catkins erect or spreading, tapered-cylindric, 2.5–4.5 cm long, c. 1 cm wide; catkin-scales, c. 2.5 mm long, pale yellow-green; stamens 2; female catkins spreading or somewhat pendent, 1.7–4.6 cm long, 6–9 mm wide; ovary flask-shaped, subsessile to stalked, long-tapered, usually conspicuously exceeding the catkin-scales, glabrous or long-pilose at base. Capsule c. 4 mm long. Flowers Sep.–Oct.
VVP, GipP, Gold, CVU, NIS. Also naturalised SA, NSW. Garden hybrid originating in Germany in the 1800s. Rarely naturalised along streams in Victoria (e.g. Merri Creek, Northcote) but probably more widespread than the rare collections suggest.
Salix ×pendulina is a hybrid between S. babylonica and S. euxina I.V.Belyaeva and is intermediate between its parents. It is widely though sparingly cultivated, but whether some naturalised populations have arisen vegetatively from cultivated stock or in situ hybridization is unknown; both parent species (representing both sexes) occur at Merri Creek. Salix ×pendulina is distinguished from other weeping willows by a combination of its very pendulous habit, often dark glossy twigs, more or less glabrous leaves which are lustrous on the upper surface, relatively coarse, uneven glandular-teeth on the leaf-margins, and male and female catkins of intermediate length. The pink colour of exposed roots of S. ×pendulina is derived from the S. euxina parent.
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