lupines, paintbrushes, and yarrow and is also found intermixed with 

 shrubs and in open woods, especially aspen. It rarely occurs under 

 conifer timber. The species is not restricted to any particular type 

 of soil, usually occurring on a fairly moist, either gravelly or sandy 

 loam. It occasionally appears on drier granitic soils and on heavy 

 clayey loams. 



Sticky geranium is an important forage plant because of its abun- 

 dance and leafiness, its palatability being only fair or fairly good or 

 occasionally good for sheep and worthless or poor to fair for cattle. 

 Any higher estimates of the species are largely based on overgrazed 

 conditions. Horses rarely eat it. Practically the entire plant may 

 be consumed in the spring but later in the season only the flowers and 

 more tender herbage are eaten. This herb withstands grazing 

 very well, due chiefly to the large reserve of food stored in its thick, 

 vertical rootstock, which anchors the plant firmly in the ground and 

 prevents pulling by grazing animals. The flowers appear in June 

 and July, the fruits in August and September. After seed produc- 

 tion, the leaves usually dry up and are then practically worthless as 

 forage. 



Sticky geranium has large, rather thick leaves, borne on long leaf- 

 stalks, which are nearly round in outline and deeply and fingerwise 

 cut into three or five divisions, which are again sharply cleft. Due 

 to the similarity of the leaves, sticky geranium is sometimes mis- 

 taken for a larkspur, especially before flowering begins. Hence, it 

 has occasionally and erroneously been considered as poisonous. 



The related Richardson geranium (G. richardsonii) is also widely 

 distributed over the same range in the West, except that it extends 

 farther southwest, and is common in parts of Arizona and New 

 Mexico, where sticky geranium is unknown. The growth require- 

 ments and sites of these two geraniums are similar. They apparently 

 hybridize in the high mountain ranges of the Wasatch, and possibly 

 elsewhere. Richardson geranium is slenderer, has hairs tipped by 

 purple glands, especially on the upper part of the plant, and bears 

 white flowers with pink or roseate veins. The palatabilities of Rich- 

 ardson and sticky geraniums are about equal but may vary in differ- 

 ent localities. In the Southwest, Richardson geranium is rated as 

 worthless to poor for cattle, poor to fair for sheep, and fair for deer. 



