| Author | Meikle, R.D. |
| Year | 1984 |
| Title | Willows and Poplars of Great Britain and Ireland |
| ISBN | 0 901158 07 0 |
| Series | BSBI Handbooks |
| Type | Book/Report |
| How Complete | All the British species and all but the rarest hybrids known at the time, with the more frequent introduced species. |
| Source | BSBI Handbooks, No 4, 198pp, Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland (BSBI) |
| Illustrations | Line drawings facing the species descriptions, plus a few more interspersed in text and keys. |
| Review (by Malcolm Storey) | Introductory chapters cover classification, terminology and collection. The latter is important as the precise identification requires two visits to the same tree: in the spring for catkins and again in the summer (July to late September) for mature leaves. The identification section starts with indented keys to Salix and Populus using mainly leaf characters. The major portion of the book consists of detailed species accounts facing line-drawings of a leaf spray, leaf base, stipules, male and female flowers, catkins etc. |
| Examine |  with x8 or x10 hand lens |
| Specimen Preparation | Precise identification requires two visits to the same tree: in the spring for catkins and again in the summer (July to late September) for mature leaves. |
| Identification difficulty | Given both catkins and leaves, identification is usually fairly straightforward, although hybrids are not rare and often challenging. Don’t expect to be able to name every willow you find! |
