White polemonium is a leafy, relatively robust, perennial herb of 

 the phlox family. The species name is a Latin adjective meaning 

 white -flowered, derived from albus, white, + flos (floris), flower. 

 The plant is occasionally called white skunkleaf or skunkweed, but 

 the skunklike odor, strong in many species of Polemonium, is raint 

 in this species. Jacobs-ladder is another name often applied to 

 plants of this genus because of a fancied resemblance of the leaves 

 to a ladder. The cultivated Greek-valerian (P. caeru'leum) is a 

 member of this genus, and the name Greek-valerian is sometimes 

 given to other species. 



White polemonium has a restricted range, occurring in southern 

 and southeastern Idaho, extreme western Wyoming, northern and 

 central Utah, and northern Nevada. It is scattered sparsely through- 

 out this range but is abundant on localized areas, sometimes being the 

 dominant or one of the dominant species. The species is largely con- 

 fined to the aspen and spruce belts and grows in moist to moderately 

 dry, sometimes gravelly, soils, occurring most commonly in aspen 

 stands but also in patches of browse, in moist glades, on open hillsides 

 and with or near willows along streams. 



White polemonium varies in palatability from fair to good for 

 sheep and from worthless or poor to fair for cattle. On a few im- 

 portant range areas, especially in central and northern Utah, white 

 polemonium is sufficiently abundant and palatable to rank as one of 

 the five or six choice forage weeds, but ordinarily it is too scattered 

 and not sufficiently relished to merit this rank. 



This species averages about 12 to 30 inches high, but is sometimes 

 40 inches tall, depending chiefly on site and season. The usually 

 solitary or sometimes several stems arise from a strong woody base. 

 The herbage throughout is more or less glandular-hairy. The white 

 or whitish-yellow flowers appear in June and July. The roots of 

 this plant appear never to have been described. As these parts 

 are important in this genus, from a diagnostic viewpoint, it is hoped 

 that field men may be led to make observations on the roots of this 

 species and to collect specimens of those parts. 



