(netleaf willow)
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Photo of Salix reticulata by Adolph Murie
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Salix reticulata is a common creeping dwarf willow shrub with very characteristic, rounded net-veined leaves. This species occurs in moist to wet areas from meadows to tundra, most frequently in or near the mountains. Plants grow only 3-10 cm tall. Branches are red- to yellow-brown, and hairless. Leaves are round, long
petioled, with deeply embossed veins, dark glossy green above and pale green to whitish beneath. Willows are
dioecious (individual plants produce either male or female flowers), the flowers highly reduced and borne in catkins. Catkins develop on terminal branches late in the summer.
Capsules are hairy and reddish in color, splitting open by two valves to release many tiny seeds with tufts of white hair. The round leaves with deeply impressed veins distinguish this dwarf willow from others in the park. Some people can initially confuse the leaves of
Salix reticulata for the leathery leaves of
Arctostaphylos rubra or
A. alpina, but this species has rounder leaves, and catkins instead of flowers or berries.
Catkins and leaves appear together right after snow melt.
S. reticulata is
dioecious and insect and wind pollinated. Seeds have attached hairs to aid in wind dissemination. It also readily spreads vegetatively, forming large mats.
Collett (2004) documented various insects on
S. reticulata such as a sawfly of the genus
Pontania, eriophyiid mites, and a
tussock moth,
Orgyia antiqua.
Salix reticulata is an incompletely circumpolar species with an arctic-alpine distribution, occurring in Europe, and across northern Eurasia and northern North America (but absent from Greenland). In North America, S. reticulata ranges from Alaska, across northern Canada to Labrador and New Brunswick and south into the mountains British Columbia and western Alberta but does not reach the lower 48 states. In Alaska this species occurs essentially statewide (usually in hills and mountains). In Denali, S. reticulata occurs park wide in suitable habitat on both sides of the Alaska Range.
Details are shown in the Plots & Charts found at right, depicting recent Denali data.
Salix reticulata is an alpine species that is found in the park at elevations 275 m to 1787 m with an average site elevation of 1008 m. S. reticulata prefers moderately steep sites with an average slope angle of 13 degrees. In Denali, this species seemed to slightly prefer north-facing over south-facing slopes.
Details are shown in the Plots & Charts found at right. For more on how to interpret these figures, visit Understanding Data Presented.
Salix reticulata grows in alpine tundra, fens, sedge meadows, and turfy places in the mountains.
Wet to moist sites.