Pussy Willow

Towards the end of April I happened across a few observations that I thought would be interesting to post as a wrap-up to earlier topics.

This first one is going back to the jumping spider that I watched pounce at (and miss) a smaller brown spider. The following week I came across the above perched on one of the legs of my tripod. It was huge! Well, relative to my first little guy. It was easily a centimeter and a half long. Black and hairy, with striking orange markings, hard to miss. But the most eye-catching thing about this little spider was its fangs, a radiant metallic green.

The spider belongs to the genus Phidippus, but I’m unsure of the species. The metallic fangs are characteristic of this group, and are used in impressing females in courtship dances. The genus is primarily restricted to North America, and includes some of the larger jumping spider species. Julie Zickefoose apparently has a little black one that keeps her company while working. His name is Boris.

A bit earlier, I had found this guy hanging out on the wall of the station building. Unlike the individual from my original post, this one had had better luck hunting. He’s munching on a midge, which are extremely common down there.

I came across this butterfly at the end of the morning one day. It was flitting from one tree to another and paused at this birch briefly. I identified it as a Painted Lady, and didn’t really give it much further thought. Then, while preparing the photos for this post I decided I should just double-check that it was a Painted and not an American, because I couldn’t remember which one had the spot on the wing. Well, turned out it was neither. I hunted through the entire Kaufman guide to butterflies twice before realizing that it was an extremely worn, rather orange Compton Tortoiseshell. The first one I’ve ever seen. But now I wonder if I’d been seeing them but writing them off as the more common Ladies.

It was pausing at the birch trees, and when I looked closer I realized it was drinking sap from fresh sapsucker wells. This species overwinters as an adult and comes out in early spring, much the way Mourning Cloaks do. Because it’s still quite early for nutrition in the form of flower nectar, they take some of their food from other sweet sources, such as sap wells (mentioned in the original post about the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker).

And finally, returning to the Pussy Willows. The same day I had the tortoiseshell, I also observed three or four Mourning Cloaks visiting the buds of this Pussy Willow. For the same reason that the tortoiseshell was sipping at the sap wells, these Mourning Cloaks were drinking the nectar available from the female flowers of the willow. I love the velvety red-black of the wings in sunlight. Most butterflies I see that overwinter as adults look a little ratty in the spring. The tortoiseshell had a chunk missing from its wing like a bird had snapped at it. This Mourning Cloak seems to be missing a piece from its hindwing.

In the very early spring, one of my favourite plants to look for starting to wake up is the Pussy Willow. In my childhood I have fond memory of a large one that grew beside the second pond, in the horse’s field. I’m not sure why, because it wasn’t a tree I ever actually did anything with, not like the tree one has their childhood treehouse built in, or a favourite swing, or that one liked to climb, etc. It was just always there, and every spring it would be one of the first trees to waken from dormancy, putting out new soft buds. There were probably others in the area as well, but this was The pussy willow.

Back in mid-February, I actually found this one struggling to bud along one of the trails on the Rouge, the day Blackburnian and I went hiking there. Mid-February seems a bit early, and it may have been woken during one of the mild spells we had. Generally I think of them starting to come out mid-March, with the catkins reaching their peak in April.

Along with the dominant cottonwoods and birch, willow is one of the prominent tree species at TTPBRS. Most are the non-fuzzy kind, but there are a few Pussy Willow here and there as well. By the start of the spring season, they were well in “bloom”.

There’re three species of willow that have been given the common name of Pussy Willow, but the one that occurs in North America is Salix discolor. It’s only found in northern North America, through Canada and the northern States. Like most willows, it’s found primarily in wet habitats such as river and pond edges, swamps and bogs.

Like the sumac, all willows, including the Pussy Willow, are dioecious, meaning a plant is either male or female, but never sports both sexes of flower. The male flowers produce long pollen-producing anthers, which give them a fuzzy yellow appearance once they’re blooming. The female flowers develop stigmas, long thin tubes that lead down to the flower’s ovary, which are greenish-yellow and lack the fuzziness of the male flowers.

Willow bark contains the compound salicin, which is closely related to aspirin. Native Americans used to harvest the willows and extract the compound from the bark for use as a painkiller and fever reducer. Branches with the fuzzy white catkins are often used in flower arrangements in the spring, and harvested stems can be forced to flower in the greenhouse by manipulating light periods.

The Pussy Willow, like all willows, is a prolific grower and will grow a new tree from a severed branch if provided water. Although not a Pussy Willow, I recall as a child the willow trees along the road being trimmed around the power lines, and we ended up with a log with a small branch, probably no more than an inch in diameter, growing out of it. The log sat for a while on the lawn, and the branch flourished. Eventually my parents buried it beside one of the little ponds. This was perhaps 20 years ago or so; the tree is now easily over 20m (60 ft) tall and measures a foot and a half in diameter at chest height.

The name Pussy Willow, of course, comes from the soft buds that sort of resemble cats’ paws, in a very abstract way… they’re both soft and fuzzy. The pointedness of them makes me think more rabbit paws, actually, but I suppose Bunny Willow didn’t roll off the tongue as nicely? These would make nicer keychains, though.

The buds are eaten by birds, including finches and grouse, in the spring. Their dense branches make great shelter and nest sites as well. The leaves are a food source for caterpillars of a number of butterflies, and the male flowers are visited by pollinators such as bumblebees.

Personally, I like to gently stroke the deliciously soft catkins against my cheek. I’m not one for fur, but I’d love to have a muff made out of these – with the fur on the inside, of course!

Tag: Pussy Willow

April redux

Cats’ paws in spring