The willows are in bloom; they are very early bloomers, beat
only by some even earlier flowering plants like skunk cabbage. Willow flowers don’t, to my knowledge, have petals, and they often bloom before their leaves appear. If you aren't paying attention, it’s
easy to miss the entire flowering period of willows. For a teacher, if you are interested in using
willows in your classroom, it may be worthwhile to mark willows in April as to
whether the plants are male or female.
My daughter challenged
me to find one hundred and one facts to know about willows. Probably possible, but rather than be boring, I have picked a few favorites in hopes that they might inspire me to think creatively about how to use willows more than I currently do in the classroom. I found this
site with some of the great “big picture” facts about willows highlighted: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~jsavage/Willows.html
To me, willows are a background plant; if you study them
enough they do stand out, but if you are just riding your bike down the road,
they just look like a bunch of shrubs.
Like every plant (and every person), willows have their own interesting
stories to tell but you may need to ask and listen to know the story.
1. Willows are
dioecious; some plants are male, and
some plants are female.
2. Some willows have
been reported to be ambophilous, using wind and insects to disperse pollen
(Meeuse, 1978).
2. Over twenty species of willows can be found in
Pennsylvania. http://www.paflora.org/
3. Changes in the chemistry of willow plants may help
explain cycling in Lynx populations.
Bryant JP,Wieland GD,Clausen T,Kuropat P. 1985. Interactions
of snowshoe hare and feltleaf willow in Alaska. Ecology 66: 1564–1573.
4. Willows often like
wet areas.
5. Willows make compounds
related to aspirin (Salicylic acid).
6. Willows are
related to Aspen, and I believe that I see the similarity when looking at the
hairy buds on the branches.
7. Some gall-making
insects attack willows, and there are reports that herbivory may differ between
male and female plants. Furthermore, willows interact with many insects. Wonderful pictures can be found here:
8. You can make a
cheap rooting solution by soaking severed young willow twigs in water for
several weeks & then using that water on the roots or cut stem of another
plant.
Willows in the classroom?
The capacity of willow plants to make rooting hormone
certainly opens many doors to student experiments.
The vegetative and flower buds of willows, especially “pussy
willows” are quite appealing to students – so they provide an opportunity to
investigate plant stem anatomy.
Dioecious nature of the plants provides an opportunity to
ask questions about sexual dimorphisms in general. Can you detect differences in allocation to
resources between male and female plants? Why do male plants allocate resources
different from female plants? Can you
detect differences in herbivory between males and females?
