forming dense, almost impenetrable thickets sometimes 6 feet or more in 

 height. 



This plant is important mainly because of its great abundance, as it is 

 generally rated worthless or low in palatability for all classes of livestock. 

 Moreover, the extensive forested areas where this plant is most abundant are 

 not ordinarily grazed by livestock. However, salal assumes a minor browse 

 importance on cut-over and burned-over lands which are grazed by sheep. In 

 studies of grazing use on Douglas fir cut-over lands in Washington, the late 

 Douglas C. Ingram 1 found that utilization of salal foliage and tender stems 

 by sheep for 2 successive years varied from zero to 55 percent, with yearly 

 averages of 25 and 13 percent. Deer and elk also make light to moderate use 

 of this shrub, especially in the winter, when its utility is enhanced by its 

 evergreen foliage. The berries are eaten by bear and deer, and frequently 

 constitute an important food for such birds as grouse and quail and for other 

 wildlife. 



Salal was discovered by Archibald Menzies (1754-1842), surgeon and natu- 

 ralist for the Vancouver expedition, which explored the northwestern coast 

 in the 1790's. It was later collected near the falls of the Columbia River and 

 at its mouth by Capt. Meriwether Lewis. Lewis and Clark found that salal 

 played an important part in the economy of the Pacific coast Indians. 2 The 

 berries were converted into a delicious syrup used to flavor soups made of 

 various boiled roots ; the berries were also used for a kind of bread made by 

 mashing them together and drying in the sun ; 3 or were eaten raw. The fruit 

 has a very agreeable flavor and even today is used for food by both the 

 northwestern Indians and white people. 



The early explorers understood the Indians to call the fruit sallon, shalal, or 

 shallon. Specimens of salal carried East were identified by the botanist Fred- 

 erick Pursh as a new species of Gaultheria, the genus to which the eastern win- 

 tergreen belongs. Pursh, availing himself of the aboriginal word, named the 

 plant Gaultheria shallon. Years later, 1824 to 1832, David Douglas, the famous 

 Scotch botanical explorer, found the Oregon Indians calling this plant salal, the 

 name by which it is now best known. 2 Douglas was impressed by the palatability 

 of the berries as well as by the possibilities of this shrub for ornamental plant- 

 ings. Salal seeds were among the first plant materials which he sent back to 

 England. This plant is now grown commonly as an ornamental in this country 

 as well as in Europe. It is used effectively as an undershrub or border in shady 

 portions of the garden, or in rockeries. 



Two other species of Gaultheria, are native to the West. Bush wintergreen 

 (G. ovatifo'lfa:) is a low, depressed plant from 4 to 8 inches high, with somewhat 

 hairy stems, small, sharp-pointed, egg-shaped leaves, five-eighths to I 1 /-* inches 

 long, small white bell-shaped flowers, and scarlet berries. It grows in the forests 

 of the upper mountain slopes from British Columbia to Oregon and Idaho. It 

 has no value as a forage plant, although the fruit is of excellent quality. 



Western wintergreen (G-. humifu'sa, syn. G. myrsini'tes) resembles bush win- 

 tergreen, but is much smaller, usually being less than 4 inches high, with leaves 

 less than an inch long. This species is distributed from British Columbia and 

 Alberta to California and Colorado. 



The above two species resemble the wintergreen (G-. prooumbens) of northern 

 and eastern North America, from which the commercial oil of wintergreen is 

 distilled. The oil probaMy does not exist in the leaves, but is formed by a 

 reaction between water and a neutral principle known as gaultherin, which is 

 probably present in all three of the western species of Ganltheria* 



1 Ingram, D. C. VEGETATIVE CHANGES AND GRAZING USE ON DOUGLAS FIR CUT-OVER LAND. 

 Jour. Agr. Research [D. S.] 43: 387-417, illus. 1931. 



2 Saunders, C. F. WESTERN WILD FLOWERS AND THEIR STORIES. 320 pp., illus. Garden 

 City, N. Y. 1933. 



8 Lindley, J., and Moore, T. (edited by). THE TREASURY OF BOTANY, A POPULAR DIC- 

 TIONARY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM ... 2 pts., illus. London, New York, and Bombay. 

 1899. 



4 Wood, H. C., Remington, J. P., and Sadtler, S. P., assisted by Lyons, A. B., and Wood, 



H. C., Jr. THE DISPENSATORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BY DR. GEO. B. WOOD 



AND DR. FRANKLIN BACHE. Ed. 19, thoroughly rev. and largely rewritten . . . 1,947 pp. 

 Philadelphia and London. 1907. 



