10 Sunday Mar 2024
Tags
Goat willow, Grey willow, male willow catkins, Pussy willow, Salix caprea, Salix cinerea, willow catkins
It’s that time of year when pussy willow – the gorgeous male catkins of the Goat willow (Salix caprea) and Grey willow (Salix cinerea) – is gracing the trees.
In Flora Britannica, Richard Mabey writes that ‘Because so little else was in leaf or flowers at this early season [early Spring], sprays of sallow have frequently been used as “palm” to decorate churches at Eastertide.’
06 Sunday Mar 2022
Tags
Goat willow, goslings, Grey willow, male willow catkins, Pussy willow, Salix caprea, Salix cinerea, willow catkins
One of the sure signs of Spring for me is the appearance of the ‘goslings’, and by that I don’t mean birds, but rather the gorgeous male catkins of the Goat willow (Salix caprea) and Grey willow (Salix cinerea). You probably know them as pussy willow but, according to my Flora Britannica, ‘they used to be called “goslings” … because their texture and colour were like newly hatched geese’.
21 Thursday Jan 2021
Posted in trees
They call them pussy willows,
But there’s not a cat to see,
Except the little furry toes
That stick out on the tree.
I think that very long ago
When I was just born new,
There must have been whole pussy cats,
Where just the toes stick through.
And every spring it worries me,
I cannot ever find
Those willow cats that ran away
And left their toes behind.
~ ‘The Willow Cats’, Margaret Widdemer (1884-1978), American poet, novelist, and Pulitzer Prize winner
02 Thursday Apr 2020
By sheer coincidence, author Robert Macfarlane’s ‘word of the day’ today on Twitter is cat’s-paw.
He writes about them: ‘nickname for catkins of the smaller willows/sallows (Goat willow, pussy willow, grey willow); among the earliest signs of spring; first grey & silky, then growing a glowing aura of tiny flowers. Often brought into houses at Easter/on Palm Sunday.’
I had already decided that today’s post would be on this same topic so here are the photos I’ve been collecting over the past week or so. These are of different trees so it’s quite likely they are not all the same species of willow (and I’m useless at working out which is which), but I love the way the catkins develop from soft furriness to beautiful bursts of yellow, and the insects love them too.
28 Wednesday Nov 2018
Tags
As I look around me on my daily walks, I see dying leaves falling from skeletal trees, I note that the butterflies and most other insects have now disappeared, I watch the winter bird migrants munching on the final berries, and I notice how short the hours of daylight are becoming. Yet, in the midst of all this death, decay and gloominess, I am cheered to notice signs of life and renewal. It seems awfully early for Pussy willow – maybe it’s not that. Whatever it is, it’s lovely.
earthstar 
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