Salix daphnoides Vill.

Multi-stemmed shrubs to ca. 8 m tall, bark smooth, branchlets erect, wood smooth. Current year's branchlets glabrous, with a white waxy bloom, moderate yellow (UCL87), light yellow-green (UCL119), or red-brown (UCL43). Flower bud scales 7–12 mm long, 4.5–5.0 mm wide, 3.8 mm deep, ovoid, keels absent, bud moderate reddish orange, glabrous. Leaves alternate. Stipule persistent, 2.0–4.5 mm long, narrowly ovate, strongly toothed or glandular, green or sometimes strong red at the base. Petiole 8–16 mm long, glabrous or short-silky on upper surface only, groove absent, glands absent, base widened and bulbous or not, yellow-green or strong red and very glossy. Emerging leaves green, with sparse long-silky hairs on both surfaces. Proximal leaves toothed. Leaf lamina 60–98 mm long, 23–39 mm wide, length to width ratio 2.6–3.9:1, obovate, ovate, oblong, or elliptical, not falcate; base cuneate; apex acute to acuminate; leaf galls absent; orange rust absent in late summer; margins densely serrulate, finely revolute; upper lamina surface smooth, medium glossy, glabrous or with short-silky hairs on midvein only, stomata absent or sparse; lower lamina surface midvein and side-veins raised, netted veins visible, distinctly to indistinctly glaucous, glabrous. Catkin opening coetaneous with, or after leaf emergence. Flowering branch 20–44 mm long, with 4 leaves below catkin. Male catkin 19–28 mm long, 12 mm diameter, stalk below catkin absent; catkin rachis not visible between flowers. Female catkin 14 mm long, 8 mm diameter, stalk below catkin absent; catkin rachis not visible between flowers. Flower bract 2.3–3.6 mm long, 1.1–1.7 mm wide, initially red, turning black throughout, plane; apex rounded to obtuse, covered in long-silky hairs. Male nectary 1, 0.6–1.0 mm long, 0.4 mm wide, green. Stamens 2, filaments free, glabrous; anthers 1.2 mm long, yellow. Female nectary 1, 0.4 mm long, 0.2 mm wide, yellow-green; ovary 1.75 mm long, glabrous; stipe 1 mm long, style base 0.8–1.2 mm long, style arms 0.4–0.6 mm long, unlobed, yellow-green.

One-year-old branchlets are pruinose (with a whitish waxy coating), appearing violet in winter, hence the vernacular name, violet willow. New green branchlets with very sparse villous hairs. Leaves narrowly ovate, cuneate at the base, acute to acuminate at the apex, mature leaves glabrous, upper surface glossy and smooth, lower surface glaucous. Stomata absent or sparse on upper surface. Mature leaves glabrous, but very new bud leaves may have sparse silky hairs on upper surface or confined to the petiole upper surface. Catkins have long-silky hairs on the bracts that obscure the flowers; the bracts are crimson when young, initially bicoloured but eventually completely black; anthers yellow. Ovaries glabrous, an uncommon state for a shrub willow of subgenus Vetrix. Some clones at Aokautere have a vivid red coloration in the petiole and stipule. The stem below each leaf is thickened into a buttress.

Most similar to Salix acutifolia, which has been regarded as a subspecies or variety of S. daphnoides (e.g. Sykes 1988). Both have a waxy bloom on 1-year-old branchlets, and an obvious stem buttress below each bud. Both have the stipule attached to the very base of the petiole, not to the stem, and have conspicuously glandular young leaf and stipule margins. Salix acutifolia differs from S. daphnoides in having juvenile leaves that are glabrous, not sparsely tomentose. Salix acutifolia has leaves very narrowly elliptical, not narrowly ovate, and the base of the leaves is cuneate, while in S. daphnoides the leaf base is obtuse. The stipe below the ovary is shorter in S. acutifolia than in S. daphnoides, as are the style and style arms.

First collection: CHR 232361, A. J. Healy, September 1965, Waimakariri River.

First publication: Sykes 1982.

Flowering: Early October–late October.

Diploid, 2n = 38 (based on 16 counts – CCDB). PN696, PN352, PN708, and PN213 were all provisionally diploid using flow cytometry.