Salix 'Chrysocoma' it is much hardier and more long-lived than the Babylon Willow ("Salix babylonica"). This particular cultivar is easily distinguished from the other Golden Weeping Willow ("S." × "sepulcralis") by its androgynous catkins. A weeping tree, not much more than 22m high. Bark greyish-brown, deeply fissured. Twigs very slender, at first thinly subadpressed pubescent, soon becoming glabrous. Golden- or greenish-yellow in their first year, later becoming olive-green. Catkins appearing with the leaves in April, terminal on very short, spreading, leafy, lateral shoots, peduncle and rhachis softly villose. Catkins male, female or most commonly androgynous. Salix 'Chrysocoma' "Salix" × "sepulcralis" <nowiki>'Chrysocoma'</nowiki>, or
Salix nigra numerous minute, down-covered seeds. The leaves turn a lemon yellow in the fall. It is typically found along streams and in swamps. "Salix gooddingii" (Goodding's willow) is sometimes included in "S. nigra" as a variety, as "S. nigra" var. "vallicola" Dudley; when included, this extends the species' range to western North America. However, the two are usually treated as distinct species. Another name occasionally used for black willow is "swamp willow", not to be confused with "Salix myrtilloides" (swamp willow). According to the National Register of Big Trees, the largest black willow tree in the US is in Hennepin, Minnesota.