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Harmless🍽️ Edible💊 Medicinal

🌿 Arctic Willow

Salix arctica · Willow family

🌲 Boreal
🧠 To remember it“The northernmost willow lays flat to survive” — its extreme creeping shape is a direct adaptation to wind and cold, not a sign of youth: some individual plants are several centuries old.
Arctic Willow — Salix arctica

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

The northernmost tree on Earth: a true willow, but reduced by the extreme climate to a creeping growth habit flat against the ground, only a few centimeters tall, with its woody stems running horizontally just below the tundra surface. Oval leaves, often downy, erect catkins distinct on male and female plants.

  1. extreme creeping habit, just a few cm high despite a woody trunk that can sometimes be centuries old
  2. simple alternate oval leaves, often downy
  3. erect catkins typical of willows
  4. grows as far as the high Arctic, beyond the tree line of any other species
Size2-15 cm high (creeping stems are much longer)
FloweringJune-July
HabitatArctic tundra, polar islands, and the northernmost reaches of woody vegetation on Earth

⚠️ Not to be confused with

No known dangerous look-alikesaucun

To tell them apart: the extreme creeping habit just inches off the ground and the erect catkins typical of willows distinguish the Arctic willow from any other woody plant in the tundra

🍽️ Eating it

Partsyoung shoots, inner bark (cambium), young leaves (rich in vitamin C)
Seasonjuin-juillet
Tastebitter (tannins and salicylates), astringent

Preparation : young shoots and catkins eaten raw by Inuit peoples, inner bark scraped and eaten fresh or dried in times of famine

💊 Healing with it

bark traditionally chewed or infused to relieve minor pain and fever (contains salicin, the natural precursor to aspirin, like all willows)

Level of evidence : traditional use — Circumpolar ethnobotany, active ingredient salicin common to the Salix genus, well documented in pharmacognosy

⚠️ not recommended if you're allergic to aspirin (salicylates), or for children (risk of Reye's syndrome, just like aspirin)

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • one of the rare sources of wood (even if tiny) available beyond the tree line, used as supplemental fuel by Inuit peoples
Sources (2)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.