Salix mucronata is a tall, graceful, evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...

 Willow tree. It grows along riverbanks in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 and is used for a wide range of traditional medicines.

The Cape Willow is dioecious

Dioecious

Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...

 (male and female flowers on separate trees).

Taxonomy

This is a very variable-looking species and it was previously subdivided into a number of different species. These have now all been downgraded to just being subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

of Salix mucronata. These subspecies include:

• Salix mucronata hirsuta (Silver willow)
• Salix mucronata mucronata (Safsaf willow)
• Salix mucronata woodii (Flute willow)
• Salix mucronata capensis (Small-leaved willow)