Salix hookeriana

The scientific name is in honor of William Jackson Hooker, director of Kew and botanical illustrator (not to be confused with William Hooker, a contemporary and also a botanical illustrator or his son ). He described this willow as

“A stout but low growing shrub, with very thick straight branches. The male catkins look like a dense cylindrical mass of wool, which entirely conceals the scales, the stamens only being protruded beyond the wool. The leaves are 2-3 inches long, one inch to an inch and a half wide, clothed with greyish woolly down beneath. Pistils perfectly glabrous, even its stipes; and the lobes of the stigma are always entire.”

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