Catkins from a Garden Raffle - Winning Again

Salix discolor 'Rosea'

You wonder, what is a catkin? It is a spicate inflorescence, or in common language, a furry flower cluster. You say, what is an inflorescence? It is a cluster of flowers or a budding and unfolding of blossoms. As in the closeup above, the furry catkins are often silver, sometimes tinged pink, and turn yellow as they open up. The word catkin comes to us from the Dutch katje, meaning kitten, because of the resemblance to a cat's tail. Catkins can be flower clusters from other than a willow, but a salix is a willow. Here is another picture of the catkins, showing the length of the stems:

If you haven't figured out by now what I'm talking about, I am avoiding the p word, especially in combination with pink (Rosea) or the French variety, Salix gracilistyla to avoid any possible google search result that might not be for the common fuzzy stems that we cut and enjoy in the early spring!

Last night I went to a garden series lecture which included the raffle of shovels, fertilizer, books and plants. Two years ago an attendee won the aforementioned "willow" shrub. This year she brought back some stems to share and I was the lucky winner! I helped hold the door for her as she arrived and wondered what she was doing with the long stems (tied together with pink ribbon) that were almost as tall as she was. Now I, too, will pay it forward by attempting to root the stems for planting in the gardens of my friends that didn't win a prize.

I have that large teak vase from Indonesia and had been thinking I should put some tall forsythia or "willow" stems in it, so this was fortuitous for me. Every year I win this garden raffle. Next time I will leave my name out of the basket--I am embarrassed that I always win. Last fall I won a shrub and couldn't decide where to put it, so I over-wintered it in my sun room and will plant it in May:

Here is an after-dark unedited flash photo of the cute catkins. Somehow the flash reveals the pinkness which is not that evident to the naked eye. The photo at the top of the post was taken against a black sheet, raised high by my husband, so I'm sharing some credit with my assistant, whose arms quickly tired, held above his head. I feel like the photos are false, but this is how they turned out with flash and I rather like them.