Flower:

Male and female flowers are mostly borne separately on different plants (dioecious), sometimes on the same plant (monoecious), in clusters called catkins; flowering occurs before leaves emerge. Male catkins are erect and cylindrical, 1/3 to ¾ inch long, from lateral buds at the tips of one-year-old twigs, with 12 to 25 flowers each with a broad, sharply pointed, yellowish to reddish-brown bract and 4 to 8 pale stamens.

Female catkins also form from lateral buds at tips of one-year-old twigs, ¼ to 1/3 inch long with 15 to 35 flowers, each having 2 red filament-like stigmas subtended by oval bracts.

Leaves and stems:

Leaves are simple and alternate, ¾ to 2½ inches long, 1/3 to ¾ inch wide, the blades widest above the middle, tips rounded with several pairs of shallow, rounded teeth, a long taper to a wedge-shaped base and very short stalk. Both surfaces are heavily dotted with minute yellow glands and are hairless or with fine hairs. Twigs are very fine, reddish to dark purplish brown, hairy, with scattered lenticels (pores) and dotted with yellowish glands. Stems are profusely branched, the tips lacking a terminal bud. Lower stems are up to about 1 inch diameter with grayish-brown bark.

Fruit:

Flowers develop into a thick, compact cluster 1/3 to ½ inch long, with flattened, egg-shaped nutlets, each about 1/8 inch long with a stubby beak.

Notes:

Sweet-gale is a common shoreline shrub of acidic lakes, streams and bogs throughout northeastern Minnesota. It spreads vegetatively by both branch layering and root suckers forming large, colonial and nearly impenetrable thickets that typically extend out over the shoreline's water. Like most members of the bayberry family, the leaves are pungently fragrant when crushed though there is no information that they are used in cooking. While at a casual glance one might see it as a willow, its gland dotted leaves and fragrant odor readily distinguishes it from any other species.