Pussy Willow

Pussy willow is the first sign of spring you can hold in your hand. Before the daffodils, before the crocuses even, those fat, silvery catkins are swelling on bare branches in February, furry and soft as a kitten's paw. There's a reason every child who ever walked past a hedge in late winter has reached out to touch one.

Salix caprea — the goat willow — is the native British species, and it grows everywhere. Hedgerows, woodland edges, riverbanks, waste ground. The catkins start as tight, silvery-grey pearls pressed against the dark bark, then swell and elongate, becoming those plump, fuzzy ovoids that feel like velvet. Touch them. Everyone should touch them. They're one of the best textures in nature.

A few branches cut for the house are among my favourite things to have indoors in February. In a tall vase or a jug, the bare, dark stems with their silver catkins have a spare, Japanese quality — ikebana without trying. They last for weeks, and if you leave them long enough the catkins develop into their full male form, dusting everything nearby with yellow pollen, which is how you know spring has properly arrived.

Bees adore them. On a warm February afternoon, a flowering pussy willow is the busiest thing in the landscape — early bumblebees and honeybees working the catkins for that first precious pollen after winter. Bringing a branch indoors and watching a confused early bee arrive at your kitchen window looking for its tree is one of those small dramas that makes the season.