Last fall, I went to a nearby wetland with a pair of clippers and cut twigs from one willow shrub after another. These cute, pointy caps are very different from the overlapping scales that protect most buds through the winter. And the few woody plants with no protective scales are easily recognizable: their naked, embryonic leaves rely on a coating of woolliness to keep them from desiccating or freezing. But telling one willow from another is quite a different matter. In my small collection I had yellow buds, both small and large, as well as brownish and reddish buds that were small, medium, and large. A single specimen that I knew from past experience to be a pussy willow had some buds as small as the smallest and others more than twice as large.