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Spreading by underground stolons, it is an excellent choice for binding soils along banks or planting in shallow water around ponds. The branchlets are slender, hairy, and reddish-brown at first, becoming smooth and brown to grayish with age. Yellowish-green catkins appear before the narrow, silvery-gray leaves.
The branches were used by Native Americans to make flexible poles and building materials. The smaller twigs were used to make baskets and the bark for cord and string. The bark and leaves also had several medicinal uses.
Sandbar willow grows best in a moist soil and is suitable for wetland edges, riverbanks, or erosion control.