PLANTS DECIDUOUS ■ FALL AND 



WINTER 



Buds, Twigs Alternate 

 Plants Armed 



1. Twigs spiny-tipped. 

 2. Shrubs with sagebrush odor and taste, to nearly 2 feet high, 

 much-branched, densely whitish-hairy; bark shreddy; twigs of 

 2 kinds: (a) short, rigid, spiny-tipped twigs, (b) stouter, un- 

 armed, big-budded twigs that leaf out in late winter and shed 

 in early summer; desert or alkaline areas of Lake, Harney, and 

 Malheur Cos., s. Oreg., not reported from Wash. 



bud sagebrush (Artemisia spinescens). 22 

 2. Shrubs without sagebrush odor and taste. 



3. Twigs bright green, ridged and lined; leaf scars raised, hidden 

 by dark, swollen leafstalk bases to which 2 tiny, pointed 

 stipules often remain attached; buds small, in leafstalk-base 

 axils; bud scales several; stems often arching; much-branched 

 shrubs to 10 feet high; dry, rocky limestone areas, Harney 

 Co. to Snake River canyons in ne. Oreg., se. Wash. 



Snake River greasebush (Forsellesia stipulifera) . 

 3. Twigs not as above; fruits and/or leaves sometimes persistent; 

 buds without bud scales, the tiny, undeveloped, whitish- 

 scurfy-hairy leaves naked in axils of leaf scars or of persistent 

 leafstalk stumps; shrubs of dry, rocky soils or of alkaline sites. 

 4. Fruits top-shaped with encircling wing near middle, some- 

 times persistent in leaf-scar axils on the spiny-tipped twigs 

 or leaving a pocketlike cavity lined with fine, white, pro- 

 truding hairs after falling; spiny-tipped twigs sometimes 

 with dark stubs of male flower-scale stalks scattered along 

 their withered tips, often with somewhat spongy bark; 

 twigs ridged downward from middle of the broadly V- or 

 U-shaped (sometimes opposite) leaf scars; bundle traces 3; 

 leaf scars often partly covered by membrane which is split 

 down on 1 side between 2 bundle traces by the bud which 

 emerges at an angle to left or right from the leaf-scar axil; 

 buds sometimes 2 (1 above the other) in some of the leaf- 

 scar axils; much-branched shrubs to 8 or 10 feet high, with 

 whitish to gray or brownish stems and hard, greenish, 

 fibrous wood; often in almost pure stands in alkaline flats 

 or low, moist sites; poisonous to sheep if eaten to excess; 

 s. and e. Oreg., e. Wash. 



black greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus). 

 4. Fruits not as above; shrubs to about 4 feet high. 



5. Buds evident, globe-shaped, the tiny, undeveloped leaves 

 white-scurfy, clustered in axils of persistent leafstalk 

 stubs which hide leaf scars; fruits saclike, reddish, rarely 

 winter-persistent; bushy shrubs with brown to dark gray, 

 shreddy bark; dry, rocky sites, e. Oreg., e. Wash. 

 spiny hopsage (Grayia spinosa). 



22 See Evergreen Key for low sagebrush (Artemisia arbuscula) which often has 

 weakly spiny-tipped twigs. 



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