Although this appears too far off the ground in this view, I think the early growth of Salix nakamurana var. yezoalpina looks like this.
Indeed. Salix nakamurana var. yezoalpina is native to mountain slopes of Hokkaido. It is a prostrate willow - 10' wide in 10 years, with varying reports of height from 6" to 12", sometimes 24" - offering yellow and white upright catkins in spring and fall color.
I carefully researched the translations and articles on various Japanese websites to be sure that I had the correct Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Then I checked to see if using Copy and Paste within the Edit option would work within the line for posting a new thread. I also used the website that was mentioned following a recent entry in Spanish in the Stumpers forum: http://babelfish.altavista.com. I believe that I came across some advertisements for adaptive software for Japanese, if that is your interest. The question is actually not off-topic because one may certainly find out more about given plants by exploring the "Translate" option one often sees for websites that come up in searches on rare plants. For example, with my interest in maples of Asia, using copy and paste with the name of the maple in a language of the area to which it is endemic, sometimes I gain a bit more information. I just checked the link above using English to Russian, which I have actually studied. It does correctly translate a word, but it translates a sentence word for word without the correct syntax or the appropriate word for a given context. Nevertheless one could still make progress using this tool in an attempt to find more information about a particular rare plant or a garden in Russia.