Seasonal Wild Flowers

Crack-willow

Latin name

Salix fragilis

Other names

S. x fragilis (Hybrid Crack-willow). According to the BSBI

PLant Atlas the Crack-wullow in the UK is now

thought to be a hybrid between S. alba (White Willow)

and S. euxina (Eastern Crack-willow) and is represented

scientifically as S. × ⁠fragilis.

Family

Salicaceae

Flowering season

April

English distribution

It is found throughout the country.

See the BSBI distribution map for Crack-willow

Habitat

It is an archaeophyte which grows mainly in wet habitats

by fresh water, e.g., streams, rivers, ponds and in ditches, fens.

marshes, boggy ground in woods, and in hedgerows.

It is often planted and pollarded. Clones of pollarded

Crack-willow can be found along rivers and rhynes in

the Somerset Levels.

Description

Crack-willow is a broad, round, deciduous spreading

tree up to 29m. When pollarded, it reaches15m

There is a range of varients and cultivars which relate

back to the hybrid parents.

They are dioecious, trees are either male or female, and

often form single sex clones.

Male catkins are cylindrical, up to 6cm long and 1.5cm wide.

There are 2 stamens per flower. Anthers are bright yellow

and filaments pale and hairy at the base. Male catkin scales

are oblong, up to 2mm and pale yellow.

Female catkins are a similar length but more slender and

greener. Scales are up to 3mm. Ovaries are ovoid to

globular and taper and curve towards the short style

and bilobed stigma.

Leaves appear at a similar time to the catkins. They are

up to 15cm, coarsely toothed. They are shiny and green

above and paler below.

Twigs are olive-brown and mostly hairless. They are liable

to break and are the reason for the tree's name.Crack-willow.

The bark of the trunk and branches is dark grey and deeply

fissured. The branches are spreading and often sag and

reroot. Broken off twigs and branches also readily sprout

new growth to form new trees..

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Crack-willow female tree in October South Somerset

Pollarded Crack-willow Somersert Levels

Male catkins on tree by river Coly, Devon

Male catkin - stamens and scales

Close-up of male flowers - 2 stamens and a scale

Female catkins on tree

Close-up of female catkin - ovoid ovary, short style,

scale and bilobed stigmas

Leaves in May - lanceolate, bent at tip, green

above and pale below

Coloured twigs.

Tree in winter - colour from twigs, spreading dipping

lower branches

Grey, fissured bark

Suckering regrowth from fallen tree

Row of pollarded trees

Crack-willow in Avalon marshes 'lit up' by winter sun

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