Osier - Salix viminalis

A shrub or small tree to 5 metres. Shoots long and flexible, shiny and yellow brown when mature. Leaves long and narrow, untoothed, green above, silvery and shiny beneath, the edges turned down slightly. Catkins narrow, 1.5 to 3cm appearing before the leaves and crowded at the shoot tips.

Water margins and wet places.

March and April.

Deciduous.

Quite common throughout lowland Britain.

Fairly common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 193 of the 617 tetrads.