E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Dioecious shrubs or trees, 3-20 m tall, not colonial; branches erect, flexible at base; twigs yellow-green to yellow-brown, sparsely to densely velvety-hairy.

Leaves:
Alternate, simple, narrowly elliptic to lance- or egg-shaped, 3-8.5 cm long, 1-3.6 cm wide, lower surface glaucous, silky to woolly hairy, becoming sparsely so, hairs white and rust-coloured, upper surface shiny, sparsely long soft-hairy becoming nearly smooth, midrib remaining hairy, margins entire or toothed, bases and tips pointed to rounded; leaf stalks without glandular dots at top; stipules leaflike.

Flowers:
Unisexual, lacking sepals and petals, borne in catkins which flower before leaves emerge, the catkins stout, unstalked; floral bracts dark or pale, hairs straight; stamens 2; ovaries 1, hairy; styles 0.2-0.6 mm long.

Fruits:
Capsules which split open to release the seeds, each of which is surrounded by a tuft of hairs; stalks 0.8-2.3 mm long.

Notes:
The lower leaf surface in this species displays 2 radically different forms of hairiness. Most commonly it has a sparse mixture of short, appressed, rust-coloured or white hairs, but forms that are densely woolly with long, wavy, erect to spreading, white hairs may occur in the same population. Both forms have velvety leaf stalks and twigs.