Salix viminalis catkins

Returning to Leybourne I looked in particular at the catkins of the Salix viminalis plants on the south side of The Ocean. The first plants were female, and the next ones were male.

The female plant was a beauty and at least some of the catkins were still "active" despite it being nearly the end of April. This is a shot of quite near the tip of a twig, with the bud scale still closed over the female catkin, and an Andrena bee, most likely a fairly well worn male, on the right of the twig. The scale of the opening catkin to the bottom left is below, just visible!

This is a shot of a later, but still early, female catkin on the lower right hand side, showing the silky white hairs, with the female stigmas and styles starting to project out and expand into their active Y-shapes. The catkin on the left hand side of the twig, slightly out of focus, has the stigmas more fully expanded. The two catkins (immediately above and above and to the right) are just losing their scales. The twig on the left shows the pruinescence of the young twigs of S. viminalis, making them look dark grey-green before they turn shiny yellow or yellowy-green lower down the twigs.  

Here the same bee is exploring an open female catkin a little lower down the twig, perhaps getting nectar from some of the nectaries in the female catkin.

One of the odd things is the sequence of catkins opening on the twig - here you can see fully open female catkins lower down, and partly open catkins higher up, with closed catkins in between.