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   Of the dozens of species of willow there only a few are native to Alabama and I’m familiar with just two or three of them.  The easiest to identify is black willow, Salix nigra, because it has long narrow alternate leaves that are green on the underside where many other willows have leaves that are whitish on the underside and/or wider.  Many of them also have larger and more persistent stipules.  Black willow is so widespread that you can sometimes grow one just by putting a pot of native soil in a tray of water.  The Alabama champion black willow is 74 feet tall, has a girth of 144 inches, and an average limb spread of 66 feet.  The second native willow I saw in its native habitat was Carolina willow, S. caroliniana, which is also called coastal plain willow due to that being where the distribution range is concentrated.  It is similar to black willow except for white underside on the leaves and a smaller mature size of the tree.  If I have seen any other in our area is could be Missouri River willow, S. eriocephala, which has a disjunct range in the Southeast.  Assuming is has significantly larger stipules I may have been mistaking it for coastal plain willow.  Silky willow, S. sericea, is reported in northwest Alabama while Florida willow, S. floridana, is possible in south Alabama although it is listed as endangered in the only other states were it is found, Florida and Georgia.  Of the willows outside our range pussy willow, S. discolor, is probably the most familiar (dirty jokes aside) because of the easily recognizable flower buds.  I saw some willows and/or poplars while at Philmont Scout Ranch, but there are so many possible kinds with overlapping appearances that I have not been able to confidently identify them to species besides keys sometimes being twigs that easily snap off such as in the exotic crack willow, S. fragilis, which is probably French.  One of the most recognizable willows is weeping willow, S. ×sepulcrali, which is synonymous with S. babylonica where the name was applied because the origin of samples was mixed up thus this was believed to be the species of willow that the Israelite captives hung their harps upon when taken to Babylon (Psalm 137), but it is more likely that the harps were actually hung on an aspen, Populus euphratica, since weeping willow is actually from China, and it is a sterile hybrid of white willow, S. alba, and another yet undetermined willow.  Willow is used for numerous purposes including weaving baskets, and Benjamin Franklin claimed to have introduced basket willow, S. vimimalis, to North America when he salvaged sprouts from a discarded basket that had been shipped from Europe.  Medicinally willow was used to treat many ailments and most notably for pain relief, which eventually resulted in aspirin.  Another important use is habitat restoration in riparian areas since most species readily root in moist soil.