Salix glaucaL.

grayleaf willow

WFO wfo-0000928442 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Salix glauca, photographed by nina_nesterova
fig. a nina_nesterova, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-29 / obs. 160828486
Salix glauca, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. b Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146451179
Salix glauca, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. c Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145427484
Salix glauca, photographed by nina_nesterova
fig. d nina_nesterova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 160654912
Salix glauca, photographed by nina_nesterova
fig. e nina_nesterova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 160642607
Salix glauca, photographed by Caleb Catto
fig. f Caleb Catto, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 141915221
Salix glauca, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. g Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 140278345
Salix glauca, photographed by Syd Cannings
fig. h Syd Cannings, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 139581972

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 49 botanical countries

Regions where Salix glauca is native: Altay, Buryatiya, China North-Central, Chita, Irkutsk, Kamchatka, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk, Korea, Krasnoyarsk, Magadan, Mongolia, Sakhalin, Tuva, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, Austria, East European Russia, Finland, Føroyar, Iceland, Italy, North European Russia, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Alaska, Alberta, Aleutian Is., British Columbia, Colorado, Greenland, Labrador, Manitoba, Montana, New Mexico, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Oregon, Québec, Saskatchewan, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, Yukon AltayBuryatiyaChina North-CentralChitaIrkutskKamchatkaKazakhstanKhabarovskKrasnoyarskMagadanMongoliaSakhalinTuvaWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaAustriaEast European RussiaFinlandIcelandItalyNorth European RussiaNorwaySwedenSwitzerlandAlaskaAlbertaBritish ColumbiaColoradoGreenlandLabradorManitobaMontanaNew MexicoNewfoundlandNorthwest TerritoriesNova ScotiaNunavutOntarioOregonQuébecSaskatchewanUtahWashingtonWyomingYukon KoreaFøroyar
Native distribution of Salix glauca, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Alberta ABT
Aleutian Is. ALU
British Columbia BRC
Colorado COL
Greenland GNL
Labrador LAB
Manitoba MAN
Montana MNT
New Mexico NWM
Newfoundland NFL
Northwest Territories NWT
Nova Scotia NSC
Nunavut NUN
Ontario ONT
Oregon ORE
Québec QUE
Saskatchewan SAS
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO
Yukon YUK
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
China North-Central CHN
Chita CTA
Irkutsk IRK
Kamchatka KAM
Kazakhstan KAZ
Khabarovsk KHA
Korea KOR
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Magadan MAG
Mongolia MON
Sakhalin SAK
Tuva TVA
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK
Austria AUT EUROPE
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
Iceland ICE
Italy ITA
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI

Not drawn on the map: Aleutian Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 194 in flower of 564 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Salix glauca observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 194 of 564 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,635 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -29.6 °C -18.7 °C -11.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 9.9 °C 16.2 °C 21.2 °C
Annual rainfall 323 mm 732 mm 1,284 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 35 mm 108 mm 245 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,635 research-grade observations of Salix glauca that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 52 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Oisodix glauca (L.) Raf.
  • Salix appendiculata Vahl
  • Salix callicarpaea Trautv.
  • Salix cordifolia Pursh
  • Salix cordifolia f. tonsa (Fernald) Polunin
  • Salix cordifolia subsp. callicarpaea (Trautv.) Á.Löve
  • Salix cordifolia var. callicarpaea (Trautv.) Fernald
  • Salix cordifolia var. eucycla Fernald
  • Salix cordifolia var. intonsa Fernald
  • Salix cordifolia var. macounii (Rydb.) C.K.Schneid.
  • Salix cordifolia var. tonsa Fernald
  • Salix desertorum Richardson
  • Salix desertorum var. elata Andersson
  • Salix glauca f. poliophylla C.K.Schneid.
  • Salix glauca subsp. acutifolia (Hook.) Hultén
  • Salix glauca subsp. callicarpaea (Trautv.) Böcher
  • Salix glauca subsp. desertorum (Richardson) Andersson ex Hultén
  • Salix glauca subsp. glabrescens (Andersson) Hultén
  • Salix glauca subsp. glauca
  • Salix glauca subsp. villosa (Hook.) A.E.Murray
  • Salix glauca var. aliceae C.R.Ball
  • Salix glauca var. callicarpaea (Trautv.) Argus
  • Salix glauca var. glabrescens C.K.Schneid.
  • Salix glauca var. glauca

and 28 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.