Salix nivalisHook.

snow willow

WFO wfo-0000929846 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Salix nivalis, photographed by J Straka
fig. a J Straka, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-28 / obs. 171195353
Salix nivalis, photographed by J Straka
fig. b J Straka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171195943
Salix nivalis, photographed by J Straka
fig. c J Straka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171196022
Salix nivalis, photographed by J Straka
fig. d J Straka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171201430
Salix nivalis, photographed by J Straka
fig. e J Straka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171199984
Salix nivalis, photographed by J Straka
fig. f J Straka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171190983
Salix nivalis, photographed by J Straka
fig. g J Straka, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155030213
Salix nivalis, photographed by Reid Hardin
fig. h Reid Hardin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145050618

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
187759
Filed as
Salix nivalis var. saximontana (Rydb.) C.K.Schneid.
Det. by
C. K. Schneider 1917-01-01
Collected
S. Watson 1869-08
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 12 botanical countries

Regions where Salix nivalis is native: Alberta, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming AlbertaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoMontanaNevadaNew MexicoOregonUtahWashingtonWyoming
Native distribution of Salix nivalis, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
New Mexico NWM
Oregon ORE
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 463 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -21.8 °C -18.9 °C -10.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 12.9 °C 15.6 °C 20.0 °C
Annual rainfall 738 mm 1,113 mm 2,417 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 89 mm 179 mm 319 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 463 research-grade observations of Salix nivalis 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.

Also published as 9 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.

  • Salix aemulans Seemen
  • Salix nivalis var. nivalis
  • Salix nivalis var. saximontana (Rydb.) C.K.Schneid.
  • Salix reticulata subsp. nivalis (Hook.) Á.Löve, D.Löve & B.M.Kapoor
  • Salix reticulata var. nana Andersson
  • Salix reticulata var. nivalis (Hook.) Andersson
  • Salix reticulata var. saximontana (Rydb.) Kelso
  • Salix saximontana Rydb.
  • Salix vestita var. nana Hook.

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.