Salix herbaceaL.

snowbed willow

WFO wfo-0000928540 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Salix herbacea, photographed by Michael D. Pirie
fig. a Michael D. Pirie, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-03 / obs. 154990249
Salix herbacea, photographed by Michal Torma
fig. b Michal Torma, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 154110076
Salix herbacea, photographed by Arne Fahrenholz
fig. c Arne Fahrenholz, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152385373
Salix herbacea, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. d Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 148678575
Salix herbacea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. e Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146375083
Salix herbacea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. f Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146193368
Salix herbacea, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. g Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146163682
Salix herbacea, photographed by Donald Davesne
fig. h Donald Davesne, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150910402

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 31 botanical countries

Regions where Salix herbacea is native: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Finland, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, North European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Spain, Svalbard, Sweden, Greenland, Labrador, Maine, Manitoba, New Hampshire, New York, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Québec AlbaniaAustriaBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaFinlandFranceGermanyIcelandIrelandItalyNorth European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSpainSvalbardSwedenGreenlandLabradorMaineManitobaNew HampshireNew YorkNewfoundlandNorthwest TerritoriesNunavutQuébec Føroyar
Native distribution of Salix herbacea, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Iceland ICE
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Svalbard SVA
Sweden SWE
Greenland GNL NORTHERN AMERICA
Labrador LAB
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
New Hampshire NWH
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
Northwest Territories NWT
Nunavut NUN
Québec QUE

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. 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 50 in flower of 151 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Salix herbacea 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. 50 of 151 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 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.

Also published as 2 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.

  • Ripselaxis herbacea (L.) Raf.
  • Salix herbacea f. herbacea

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.