Sitka Willow

About Sitka Willow in Alberta

Sitka willow is a native Alberta willow, but it should be treated as a localized and regionally limited species rather than a common province-wide shrub. It is a shrub or small tree of wet riparian and wetland habitats, with hairy branchlets, broad leaves, and woolly leaf undersides that place it among the hairier broad-leaved willow group rather than the narrow-leaved alluvial willows. For Ancient Roots Alberta, its importance lies mainly in rare inland native occurrences, wetland continuity, and the biogeographic significance of northwestern floristic elements reaching into Alberta.

Identification: Leaves are elliptic to oblanceolate or obovate, often with proximal margins that are strongly revolute. Lower surfaces are densely short-silky, woolly, or silky-woolly and are not evidently glaucous, while upper surfaces range from slightly glossy to dull. The broad leaves and woolly undersides are among the strongest field traits.

Alberta range and habitat: Sitka willow is native in Alberta, but current evidence supports treating it as localized rather than broadly distributed. A documented disjunct population near Whitecourt along the Athabasca River is especially important because it shows Alberta as an inland edge of a larger northwestern range rather than a main center of abundance.