Goat Willow fluff

It's the time of year for the great Willow Fluff drift.  For a couple of weeks now, the tiny white 'fairies' have been floating across the garden - usually lazily, but if the wind gets up it becomes a blizzard.  They stick to everything but are especially obvious around our windows and in the netting on the gate.  Of course each one hides a seed, and they will germinate anywhere and everywhere - in the top of pots and containers and in the paving cracks and wall joints.  The Goat Willow tree is one of the first to colonize untended ground here; it's an attractive tree, not very big but spreading out to a shapely sphere of soft green.  Prior to the flowers producing fluff they are those lovely silvery 'pussy willow' buds in the early spring, and it is then known as 'Palm' in the North.  The older outer branches drop or break off to the ground, and simply continue to grow in their horizontal position, sending up  more branches and rooting into whatever soil they happen to touch.