Black Willow is what I know of as the plant the English call Bay Willow........the one with the very dark, shiny leaves ? Salix Pentandra. What's the black willow you have then ?
cheers,
Toddy
To be honest i don't really know, there are many varieties of Willow here, i know we have predominantly black willow and bay willow in the park, also some crack willow, i'm not an expert on trees as such but we do avoid using it as firewood because the head ranger insists it is not a hard wood and so makes for poor burning, If we cut any and don't use it straight away for revetment work then we chip it and use it as wood chip for the wood chip burner that fuels the parks visitor centre. Alder we use for making charcoal.