Belly Willows

Being a fan of NPR’s A Way with Words, I was pleased to discover that the July 10, 2017 program included belly flower! As Martha Barnette explained, “it’s a term for a small low-growing wildflower, the kind that you have to get down on your belly to see.”

But I already knew this. I was looking for a term for belly flowers no longer in flower—instead with fruits or seeds. I didn't have much luck. Because “belly fruit” and “belly seeds” sounded too much like New Age remedies, and “belly plant” was already in use, I decided on “belly willow”.

Belly willows are my favorite willows, mainly because they grow in spectacular settings high in the mountains (they're also easy to identify). Arctic Willow, Salix arctica, is common in the Medicine Bow Mountains just 50 miles west of town. Plants are typically just a few inches tall, forming a low cover of leaves above stems winding along the ground. Being a belly willow, Arctic Willow is wonderful to stumble upon if one is used to willows as trees or shrubs—a really fun discovery: “Oh my, willow catkins and leaves at ground level!”

Male flowers of Arctic Willow (like all willows, it’s dioecious). Matt Lavin photo (cropped).

Arctic Willow in fruit (specifically capsules). Andrey Zharkikh photo (cropped).

True to it’s name, Arctic Willow is common and widespread in the Arctic. But it also occurs further south at high elevations, for example in the Sierra Nevada of California, and in the Rocky Mountains as far as New Mexico. Adapted to short seasons, it grows slowly and is long-lived (one individual in Greenland was determined to be 236 years old).

Late-season meadow at base of Snowy Range, crest of Medicine Bow Mts., Wyoming.

Last week I was sprawled belly-down at 10,500 feet above sea level in a “wet” meadow (now dry) in the Medicine Bow Mountains, communing with Arctic Willows. Autumn had arrived—their leaves were a mix of green, yellow, orange and red. Only a few plants still had intact capsules; most had split open to release their seeds. Scattered across the meadow were wads of fluff embedded with tiny willow seeds, waiting for wind.

Each tiny willow seed has a tuft of fine cottony hairs for flying with the wind (American nickel for scale, about 2 cm across).

Dried split capsules stay on the plants after releasing seeds. They're visible in the wad of seed hairs below.

Of course most of our willow species sent their seeds off long ago, in late spring or early summer. But snow melts late at 10,500 feet—the season is short, and plant phenology is compressed. The  belly willows in this meadow had only about two months to go from flower to fruit to seed.

News of My Old Tree Friend & Two New Ones

A lovely spring day in Laramie, Wyoming. 

Though spring has officially arrived, I knew I wouldn’t find any visible changes in the two trees I’m following. Here in the continental interior at 7200 feet elevation, it’s too early for flowers or leaves on trees. But there is one exception—the American pussy willow, Salix discolor. So before I checked on the trees by the art building, I walked up “Willow Canyon” just east of town to see how the willow was doing.

I discovered this willow on a hike in late February, 2015. Catkins were already emerging! Just the tips were visible, but still I was astonished, and chose the willow as the tree to follow that year. And of course it soon became “my willow” … trees are that way.

A full healthy canopy; August 2015.

I still visit my willow periodically. It's a beautiful tree when fully leafed out, but last August I discovered to my horror that all the leaves were dead! It was much too early for annual leaf fall, so I presume it was because of our drought. “What does this mean?!” I was worried …

 … and I was really happy yesterday when I found it covered in catkins :-)

Willow standing behind two junipers.

Tiny white dots are catkins, not snow.

A few dead leaves still hang on ... imagine the canopy full of these!

Occasionally the sun broke through the clouds, making the catkins shine.

These catkins are not as far along as those of April 2015 (below). I'm not surprised. We're having a cool snowy spring. But snowy is fine—we need the moisture.

April 2015.

By the time we got back to the car, the snow had stopped and the sun was out, lifting my spirits even more. Off to the art building!

The late afternoon sun partially lit the two trees I'm following this year, highlighting their beautiful bark. As I suspected, I found no clues as to identity. The buds didn't help (do you recognize them?)

Next I visited the castle ... still no signs of residents. Maybe they're snug and warm inside, and haven't bothered to shovel the walkway.

The woman standing by the entrance last month was still there. And not even shivering!

Nor was I, but my hands were cold after taking photos (no gloves), so I went inside to enjoy the artwork. Student exhibitions change monthly, which is nice for a tree follower. I took photos of a piece I found especially appealing—something about the color and form.

Lattice by Donatellia Austin, 2018; Paper, Fabricated Steel.

I wondered if anyone would tell me not to photograph the artwork, but the few people who walked by said nothing, didn't even glance my way. Then I looked up and realized ... I was being watched!

For more tree-following news, see April's virtual gathering kindly hosted by The Squirrelbasket. And again, thanks to Lucy Corrander who started the whole wonderful business years ago.

Our Earliest Bloomer

American pussy willow in February 2015, southeast Wyoming, 7200 ft elevation.

For a month I've been identifying plant specimens collected at Mount Rushmore National Memorial (yes, there’s more to the park than presidential heads). The Park Service funded a floristic inventory to document all vascular plants within the Memorial boundaries. This requires a specimen for every reported species, deposited in a public herbarium, and of course correctly identified. My role is to review the problematic ones, using the wonderful resources of the Rocky Mountain Herbarium—literature and an immense collection of dried pressed plants.

One of the biggest challenges is the genus Salix, the willows. Specimens often include only leaves, with no information about other characteristics, like bark. Flowers and fruit aren't always helpful, being small and nondescript. Differences between species are often subtle, and some species are highly variable. In other words, willows are a pain.

But there are exceptions, one being the American pussy willow (Salix discolor), notable for its behavior. When I looked at the Mount Rushmore “Salix discolor” specimen, I realized immediately it was something else because the branchlet had both catkins (flowers, fruit) and leaves. American pussy willow blooms and sets fruit long before leafing out.

That trait was fixed in my memory three years ago, on a cold winter day in the foothills east of town. In a small dry canyon I was shocked to find a willow with pussy paws (tips of emerging catkins). After all, it was February! It would be three more months before the first leaves appeared.

Pussy willow canopy, early June.

A week ago, curious as to how early the pussy paws emerge, I hiked up what has become Willow Canyon to check. Sure enough, it was “in bloom.”

Off to see the willow (terribly dry year so far).

The willow of Willow Canyon is the leafless tree mid photo.

Blooming already! White dots are pussy paws.

Emerging catkin.

Tree of the Month: my old friend the Pussy Willow

View from the rim.

Sad to say, summer is ending. The days are cooler and shorter. The remaining wildflowers are late-bloomers of the sunflower family—gumweed, asters, rabbitbrush, snakeweed and sagebrush. And all of our deciduous trees have at least a few yellow leaves; in fact some have a lot. Cottonwood leaves litter my yard even though five weeks remain until University students show up to rake them—on that wonderful day of public service that accompanies Homecoming! Last year the leaves were late in falling; this year, the volunteer rakers will stay busy all morning.

In honor of the monthly gathering of tree-followers, I checked on an old friend to see how he was faring with the changing seasons—the American pussy willow I followed in 2015. (I’m not totally anthropomorphizing. Salix discolor is dioecious and this tree is male.) One big change was visible right away—signs and barriers. The open space east of town has long been “closed” to motorized vehicles, but enforcement wasn’t feasible. These recently-installed deterrents seem to be doing the job.

Path to Willow Canyon. Weird light is due to smoke from forest fires hundreds of miles to the west.

The eponymous willow of Willow Canyon was looking great, with a full green canopy—maybe because we had lots of early-season moisture. Here are views of the top of the tree from the canyon rim. I estimate it to be about 15 feet tall.

Willow canopy in foreground, junipers behind. Rocks are limestone.

Scattered yellow leaves verified that summer is indeed coming to an end. But I also found signs of spring!—abundant bright red buds. From these, pussy feet will emerge in late winter (I cut a few open to be sure). By then, the bud scales will have turned black.

Silky hairs of emerging male catkins, February 2015.

From the head of the canyon, a rough trail leads down to the limestone alcove where the willow grows, below a jump that becomes a waterfall after heavy rain. The tree is well shaded—and almost hidden—by junipers.

Willow (arrow) is hard to spot from the canyon bottom.

I entered the alcove as carefully and quietly as I could. But all the elves, fairies, sprites and pixies that surely live there must have heard me coming. I saw none … though I think I heard rustling as they scurried away.

Years ago, a seed germinated and a young plant managed to survive in a limestone crevice. Now a large willow grows in this dry rocky little canyon, largely hidden from view. That's magical!

Note size of stems—this willow has been around for awhile.

A walk up the Plant Evolutionary Ladder … all the way to flowers

Willow Canyon ahead, what will we find?

On February 12—midwinter—we headed for “Willow Canyon” on the east side of the Laramie Basin, at 7200 feet, in the interior of the continent far from moderating marine influences. Yet it felt like spring … sunny, warm (40º F!), and no wind.

The prairie was brown except for occasional small green blades along the dirt road. Aside from limber pines and Rocky Mountain junipers, trees and shrubs were bare. But after entering the canyon we found much of interest. Emmie wore herself out in her usual futile pursuit of rabbits (enthusiasm far exceeds ability). I was more successful, finding everything from mosses to flowers in what appears to be just another small dry limestone canyon in the foothills of the Laramie Mountains.

Starting low on the evolutionary ladder …

Mosses—no seeds, no vascular tissue.

Mosses lined rock ledges in a shady alcove in the canyon wall. They were surprisingly lush, rich green and moist with recent snowmelt. I saw only gametophytes, with no sign of this year's sporophytes (the two phases of the moss life cycle). The mix of shade and light made photography difficult, so I just shot and hoped for the best.

Mosses reside low on the evolutionary ladder because they produce spores instead of seeds, and they have no vascular tissue—which explains why they’re short. Conducting water very far is difficult without plumbing.

These moss clumps are aggregations of small individual stalks, gametophytes. There may be sex organs hidden at the tips of the gametophytes. If fertilized, female ones will grow into sporophytes (there's more in the elegant life cycle diagram mentioned earlier).

Clump of moss gametophytes, with a few dead sporophytes from last year.

An abundance of sporophytes; fairy for scale.

Lichens also thrived on the limestone ledges (orange and yellow mats above). I couldn’t place them on the plant evolutionary ladder as they’re not a single organism but three, in a beneficial partnership: an alga, a fungus and a yeast (the last is a recent discovery).

I found a few ferns too, though not in the shady alcove as you might expect but rather on exposed rock faces. Tough little cliffbrakes with thickish dull green fronds seem to grow directly out of the rock. This is western cliffbrake (Pellaea occidentalis), which is calciphilic as well as xerophytic—limestone-loving as well as drought-tolerant. [See Plants on Rock for more about plants of Willow Canyon.]

Plant is about 2 in across.

Ferns are vascular plants so are considered more advanced than mosses, but they too produce spores, not seeds. Below is a seed-producer. However its seeds are naked, indicating we still haven't reached the top of the ladder.

My favorite gymnosperm (“naked seed”) in the canyon is this limber pine (Pinus flexilis). It’s a really small “tree” but its life history is impressive: a seed germinated in a dry shallow crack, grew into a seedling, and managed to keep growing with just a bit of moisture and debris each year! The annual rings must be microscopic. Any guesses as to age?

Nearing the top of the evolutionary ladder, I found an angiosperm (“enclosed seed”)—a flowering plant. And it was flowering! This may be the only native species blooming in the wild in the Laramie Basin right now (can’t think of any other possibilities).

Well … barely blooming. White hairs were just starting to emerge beyond the bud scales.

North American pussy willows (Salix discolor) bloom long before leafing out. I followed this one in 2015, after discovering flowers on February 26. Leaves didn’t show up until May. It's a male, and the only willow in the canyon. It thrives in an alcove shaded by junipers, with moss at its feet, next to a small waterfall that runs after heavy rains.

Willow Canyon pussy willow two years ago, on February 26.

The willow thrives thanks to great habitat. Water runs off the rock wall, and large junipers provide shade.

I easily walked to the head of the canyon (almost no snow!) and then returned by way of the rim, stopping for a few more views of the willow of Willow Canyon.

Eponymous willow peeks above the canyon rim (center of photo).

Of course, these plants pale in comparison to those being posted by bloggers from warmer zones, where gardens already are filled with color, or from moister climes where walls and nooks are lush with mosses and ferns. But this is southeast Wyoming. This time of year, even the most modest plants thrill us! At the same time, I hope this crazy weather doesn’t prompt more plants to grow and bloom … and then get zapped by repeated hard frosts.

Coda

Though it felt like a spring day, winter made its presence known—best of all, in the form of ice art. Jack Frost produces terrific abstracts. Fortunately, several were still in place.

Jack can turn even the most mundane object into a thing of beauty … like a mud puddle:

Thanks to Beth of Plant Postings for the inspiration to look for plants on rocks in midwinter: It's Only a Rock Wall ... Or Is It?