Native across Canada, south to Montana, South Dakota and Delaware. Found along roads, wetlands, and in disturbed areas. Critical early pollen source for various insects. Easy to propagate - just snip off a whip and it will root easily in a vase of water.

"It is a poor pussy willow that does not have a song sparrow perched in it at this season, his throat vibrating with the tumbled, jingling notes of his early love song." ~Donald Culross Peattie

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According to an old Polish legend, a mother cat was crying at the bank of a river her kittens had fallen in and were drowning. The willows at the river's edge swept their long branches into the river, the tiny kittens gripped tightly to the branches, and were brought safely to shore. Ever since, in spring the willow branches sprout tiny furry buds at their tips where the kittens once clung.

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The American Pussy Willow is often confused with the Goat Willow or Eurasian Pussy Willow (Salix caprea), as they are very similar. The Eurasian species is the one sold at conventional garden centers and nurseries. One must go to a native plant nursery to buy the American Pussy Willow. The American species has twigs that are at first dull bright green then to reddish-purple then to deep dark brown. The tiny leaf buds are dark brown or nearly black. The leaves of about 2 to 4 inches long, the leaf base usually wedge-shaped, and leaves are bluish-white and bloomy underneath. (The European species has lustrous brown twigs and buds are red to brown. Its leaves are gray and woolly beneath and have a wrinkled aspect.) Both species are dioecious in having separate male and female plants. It is the male form of both species that has the prettier pussy flowers that have the yellow tipped anthers showing when in full bloom. The tiny seeds are eaten by birds and small mammals from the female plants. The Eurasian species has slightly larger flowers than the American, which is why it is preferred by the conventional nurseries. The American species in my yard has pussies about 1/2" to 3/4" long while the Eurasian species has pussies about 1 inch long, even up to 2 inches . The American Pussy Willow, like the Eurasian, is fast growing of 3 to 6 feet/year and lives up to 50 years, has a shallow' fibrous root system and is easy to transplant. It is weak-wooded and picked on by cankers and leaf blights. Pussy Willow has a large native range from southeast Canada through New England down the Appalachians to eastern Tennessee, all around the Great lakes, western Ontario into central British Columbia with some spots in the northern Rocky Mountains. I have occasionally seen some wild Pussy Willows in northern Pennsylvania; otherwise, only a few at arboretums.

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