Succesful Salix reticulata collection!

The montane willow seed collection season was brought to an exciting close this August as we collected Salix reticulata catkins from Glen Lochay Estate. These efforts are the first of which we are aware to propagate and plant Salix reticulata for habitat restoration.

Innes Manders

9/4/20241 min read

Salix reticulata - or net-leaved willow - is one of the rarest montane willow species in Scotland. It is nationally scarce, and occurs almost exclusively on calcareous crags above 650 m.

This summer we recorded over 150 Salix reticulata plants in Glen Lochay Estate, identifying it as potentially the largest net-leaved willow population in the UK, outside of Ben Lawers NNR. We returned to the site at the end of August in the hope that some of the catkins we noticed earlier in the year would finally be dehiscing. We were perhaps a little pessimistic, considering the wet August weather and that the other montane willow species had finished dehiscing around a month earlier.

To our great delight, we managed to collect a number of catkins from Coire Cheathaich!

The catkins we collected will now be processed by Scotia Seeds and propagated by Cheviot Trees for use in restoration projects by Forest and Land Scotland. Some of the seeds will also be propagated by the James Hutton Institute and

Succesful Salix reticulata collection!

Catkin Ecology