Plants trees, shrubs, or shrublets, dioecious; buds with a single outer scale. Leaves usually alternate, rarely subopposite or opposite; stipules small, free, deciduous or peristent; petioles short or absent; blades simple, linear-lanceolate, oblong, or obovate. Inflorescences catkins, appearing before, with, or after the leaves, erect or spreading, rarely pendulous, sessile or pedunculate. Flowers unisexual, subtended by a single bract and 1 or 2 glands; bracts entire, persistent or deciduous; glands entire, 1 adaxial and, if 2 present, 1 abaxial. Staminate flowers: stamens usually 1-2 (-many); filaments free or partly to wholly united, usually exceeding the bract. Pistillate flowers:ovary 1, sessile or stipitate, 1(-2, 4)-celled; ovules numerous; style 1, entire or 2-lobed. Capsules 2-valved, valves usually recurving after dehiscence. Seeds small, surrounded by fine hairs.
Salix includes about 520 species, most of which are native in northerth-temperate regions.
The above decriptions is based on treatments in the Floras of Pakistan and China by S.I. Ali and Liu Shu, respectively.