XSLT: recursive templates on parametrized nodes

I am attempting to call a template recursively on a parametrized list of node types.

If I pass these parametrized values to a template, it doesn't recurse. However, if I pass in the values to the template directly, the recursion works as expected.

How can I get the recursion to work while matching against a parametrized value?

(I am using saxon version 9.9.1.6 (home edition) to apply the XSLT transformation)

Input HTML

<p>
<p>paragraph1</p>
<p>paragraph2</p>
<a>link here</a>
</p>

XSLT with direct value for template:

<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:param name="container" select="p|a"/>    
<xsl:template match="p|a">
    Name: <xsl:value-of select="name()"/>
    Value: <xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    Name: p
    Value: 

    Name: p
    Value: paragraph1

    Name: p
    Value: paragraph2

    Name: a
    Value: link here

This is working and what I would expect to happen. But when I try and pass parametrized values to the template, it matches the top-level element but does not match any child elements.

XSLT with parametrized value for template:

<xsl:stylesheet version="2.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:param name="container" select="p|a"/>    
<xsl:template match="$container">
    Name: <xsl:value-of select="name()"/>
    Value: <xsl:apply-templates/>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

Output:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    Name: p
    Value: 
paragraph1
paragraph2
link here