Salix retusaL.

WFO wfo-0000930209 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Salix retusa, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. a Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-10 / obs. 156476171
Salix retusa, photographed by Christoph Moning
fig. b Christoph Moning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 147009924
Salix retusa, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. c Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 137902182
Salix retusa, photographed by Étienne Léveillé-Bourret
fig. d Étienne Léveillé-Bourret, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 108365940
Salix retusa, photographed by Olivier Argagnon
fig. e Olivier Argagnon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 58626084
Salix retusa, photographed by agosti
fig. f agosti, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 9552274
Salix retusa, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. g Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81841346
Salix retusa, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. h Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 80078508

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 14 botanical countries

Regions where Salix retusa is native: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine AlbaniaAustriaBulgariaCzechia-SlovakiaFranceGermanyGreeceItalyNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSpainSwitzerlandUkraine
Native distribution of Salix retusa, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Bulgaria BUL
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR

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 354 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -18.2 °C -14.9 °C -9.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 11.7 °C 13.7 °C 16.7 °C
Annual rainfall 1,229 mm 1,774 mm 2,680 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 158 mm 313 mm 525 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 354 research-grade observations of Salix retusa 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 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.

  • Salix kitaibeliana Willd.
  • Vimen retusa Raf.

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. 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.