Salix alba 'Vitellina'

Golden Willow is a member of the willow or Salicaceae family and is a cultivar of white willow (S. alba). It has bright deep yellow shoots and narrowly-lanceolate mid-green leaves. It often is grown not as a tree but as a multi-stemmed shrub with the branches being cut back heavily each year in late winter before new growth appears. Left as a tree, it can reach 18 m tall and close to 1 m in diameter.

• Leaves are alternate, narrowly elliptic or narrowly lanceolate in shape and finely serrated, 13 cm long and 2 cm across, upper surface medium green and glabrous, lower surface is somewhat whitened. Petioles are up to 7 mm long.
• Branches and twigs are greenish yellow, golden yellow, or golden brown, while young shoots are light green; twigs and shoots are relatively slender and flexible.
• Species is dioecious. Male (staminate) flowers are in narrowly cylindrical catkins up to 6 cm long, on short side shoots up to 2 cm long that have 1–2 small leaves. Each male flower consists of 2 stamens with yellow anthers.
• Female flowers become mature seed capsules in 1 month, turning brown and splitting open to release their tiny seeds which are embedded in fine cottony hairs that facilitate wind dissemination of the seeds.