Species: Salix fluviatilis

Plantae - Anthophyta - Dicotyledoneae - Salicales - Salicaceae - Salix - The name 'Salix fluviatilis' has been used in several senses in floristic literature of recent decades. Following Kartesz (Floristic Synthesis, 1999), this name is here applied to a relatively rare willow of the Columbia River region of Oregon and Washington. Taking a different perspective, Robert D. Dorn (Taxon 47: 459-460, 1998) provides a neotypification of Salix fluviatilis as the plant otherwise known as Salix melanopsis, noting that the protologue (Nuttall, 1842) offers no evidence of hybridization, indicating instead a widespread species having the characteristics of S. melanopsis. Dorn accordingly proposes nomenclatural rejection of the name Salix fluviatilis, allowing continued usage of the name S. melanopsis, and continued usage of the name Salix exigua for the transcontinental species to which some (e.g., Hitchcock, 1964, Vasc. Pl. Pacific NW) would apply the name Salix fluviatilis in a broad sense. Others (including Kartesz, 1994 checklist and 1999 floristic synthesis) have used the name Salix fluviatilis (by some considered a hybrid, Salix x fluviatilis) for a rare willow, perhaps of hybrid origin, known only from sites along the Columbia River in Washington and Oregon. However, as Dorn (1998) notes, these plants are inconsistent with the original description by Nuttall; Dorn plans to treat them instead as a new variety of Salix exigua. The evidence of possible hybrid origin of the rare Columbia River plants was developed by Steve Brunfels. LEM 3Jun98, rev. 10Jun00.