Salicaceae


The Salicaceae are a family, the willow family, of flowering plants. The traditional family included the willows, poplar, aspen, and cottonwoods. Recent genetic studies summarized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group have greatly expanded the circumscription of the family to contain 56 genera and about 1220 species, including the Scyphostegiaceae and many of the former Flacourtiaceae.
In the Cronquist system, the Salicaceae were assigned to their own order, Salicales, and contained three genera. Now recognized to be closely related to the Violaceae and Passifloraceae, the family is placed by the APG in the order Malpighiales.
'' showing a salicoid tooth. The brownish-yellow area in the axil of the tooth is the glandular seta. Note how the vein approaching from the top right expands as it enters the tooth.
Under the new circumscription, all members of the family are trees or shrubs that have simple leaves with alternate arrangement and temperate members are usually deciduous. Most members have serrate or dentate leaf margins, and those that have such toothed margins all exhibit salicoid teeth; a salicoid tooth being one in which a vein enters the tooth, expands, and terminates at or near the apex, near which are spherical and glandular protuberances called setae. Members of the family often have flowers which are reduced and inconspicuous, and all have ovaries that are superior or half-inferior with parietal placentation.

Genera by subfamily