Back to Leybourne Lakes and there are plenty of willows in flower.
The Salix viminalis was fairly well over, but I did find some female catkins that were only just past their best, with styles still in place, and some male catkins still with stames emerging from the inflorescence. This timing fits with Meikle stating that this is one of the first willows to flower, from late February onwards. I don't think that it was that early this year, but I certainly was seeing the tail end of the flowers by now. The female fruits on some trees were swelling with the vestigial remnants of the styles and stigmas only just still visible. It would be interesting to go back around the site checking to see which plants are male and which are female. They would have either been planted or perhaps germinated from seed. The distribution appears to be around "The Ocean" and I would feel this is consistent with planting whips or other propagules when the site was replanted after its use as gravel pits was discontinued. I need to look elsewhere and compare this with its natural distribution along river banks in Russia as according to Meikle.
As in Meikle, the male flowers each have two glabrous stamens, up to 1 cm. long, much longer than the catkin scale. From the same source, the anthers are oblong, yellow, about 0.5 mm long and 0.2 mm wide, and all these points fit with the plants at Leybourne which I have checked.
The Salix viminalis was fairly well over, but I did find some female catkins that were only just past their best, with styles still in place, and some male catkins still with stames emerging from the inflorescence. This timing fits with Meikle stating that this is one of the first willows to flower, from late February onwards. I don't think that it was that early this year, but I certainly was seeing the tail end of the flowers by now. The female fruits on some trees were swelling with the vestigial remnants of the styles and stigmas only just still visible. It would be interesting to go back around the site checking to see which plants are male and which are female. They would have either been planted or perhaps germinated from seed. The distribution appears to be around "The Ocean" and I would feel this is consistent with planting whips or other propagules when the site was replanted after its use as gravel pits was discontinued. I need to look elsewhere and compare this with its natural distribution along river banks in Russia as according to Meikle.
As in Meikle, the male flowers each have two glabrous stamens, up to 1 cm. long, much longer than the catkin scale. From the same source, the anthers are oblong, yellow, about 0.5 mm long and 0.2 mm wide, and all these points fit with the plants at Leybourne which I have checked.
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