Booth's Willow

About Booth's Willow in Alberta

Booth's willow is a native Alberta willow, but its nativity is geographically narrow and tied mainly to southern and western mountain landscapes rather than to ordinary lowland Alberta settings. It is a wet-meadow, streamside, fen, and high-water-table shrub of montane and lower-subalpine country, usually forming rounded multistemmed shrubs rather than broad urban plantings or widespread prairie thickets. For Ancient Roots Alberta, it matters most as part of intact native mountain wetland and riparian systems where persistent, well-developed willow communities still reflect natural hydrology and landscape continuity.

Identification: Leaves are ligulate to narrow or broad elliptic, with an upper surface that is often shiny or strongly glossy. The lower surface is not glaucous, and margins are entire to lightly serrulate. In field use, the glossy upper surface and non-glaucous lower surface are among the most practical leaf cues.

Alberta range and habitat: In Alberta, Booth's willow is best treated as a native species of southern mountain landscapes rather than as a province-wide willow. It is associated with montane and lower-subalpine wet places, especially streambanks, wet meadows, fens, boggy bottomlands, and other sites with a high water table.