Russet buffaloberry, a thornless shrub with opposite leaves, is 

 known locally as Canadian or thornless buffaloberry, nannyberry, 

 scurfy shrub, soopoolalia or soopolallie (Indian), wild oleaster, and 

 wild olive. This shrub is widely distributed, ranging from Alaska 

 to eastern Oregon, northern New Mexico, South Dakota, New York, 

 Mainei, Newfoundland and Labrador. It occurs chiefly in open, 

 moist woods in the mountains in the ponderosa pine, aspen, and 

 lodgepole pine belts but does not thrive in dense shade. Although 

 usually scattered, this species is sometimes very abundant and even 

 a predominating shrub, often becoming heavily established in old 

 burns especially on north slopes where lodgepole pine is coming in. 



This plant has little or no browse value for cattle and is usually 

 considered worthless for sheep, but before frost occurs, in Idaho and 

 Montana, it is regarded as of limited to fair value for sheep. 1 This 

 species is also considered fairly good yearlong forage for deer and 

 elk, especially in the Northwest. 



BUFFALOBERRIES (Lepargyre'a spp., syn. Shepher'dia spp.) 



Lepatrgyrea, a genus of shrubs with opposite, scurfy leaves, com- 

 prising three species, is confined wholly to the western and northern 

 parts of North America. The name Lepargyrea is from the Greek 

 lepis, a scale, and argvxr&s, silver, and refers to the branched, star- 

 shaped scales which beset the leaves. Russet buffaloberry is the 

 most common and widely distributed. Silver buffaloberry (L. ar- 

 gentea), also known as redberry and bullberry, is often plentiful on 

 moist hillsides, along streams, and in bottomlands at elevations of 

 from 3,500 to 7,500 feet from Saskatchewan and Alberta to Kansas, 

 New Mexico, and Nevada. Roundleaf buffaloberry (L. rotwndifolia) 

 is confined to southern Utah and the Grand Canyon region of Ari- 

 zona, where it inhabits warm, dry, sandy, or rocky slopes. 



Russet buffaloberry in Idaho and Montana is considered fair 

 forage for sheep, but elsewhere is practically worthless as forage for 

 domestic livestock. Silver buffaloberry is a thorny shrub, seldom 

 browsed, either by domestic livestock or game animals, but in Utah 

 on heavily grazed pastures along the Green and Sevier Rivers, where 

 this plant is fairly abundant, it is eaten by cattle and sheep. Round- 

 leaf buffaloberry, on summer range, generally has little or no browse 

 value for either domestic livestock or game animals and particularly 

 if normal grazing conditions obtain. However, its evergreen char- 

 acter gives it local value on winter ranges where it is abundant. 



The buffaloberries are prolific producers of small, berrylike, roundish fruits 

 about one-eighth to one-fourth of an inch long, and, undoubtedly, these fruits 

 are utilized for food by birds and small animals. Fruits of russet buffalo- 

 berry are yellowish red and are rather insipid and unpalatable to man, but the 

 reddish (sometimes golden-yellow) sour fruits of silver buffaloberry are 

 excellent for pies, jams, and jellies, and were extensively gathered by Indians 

 and pioneers who preserved them by drying. 



Silver buffaloberry is a shrub or small tree 6 to 20 feet high with whitish, 

 somewhat thorny branches. The leaves are oblong, with a rounded apex, and 

 are silvery-scaly on both surfaces. Roundleaf buffaloberry is a low, densely 

 branched shrub with silvery branches and persistent rounded-oval leaves, 

 densely silvery-scurfy on both sides. Its fruits are also scurfy. 



1 Dayton, W. A. IMPORTANT WESTERN BROWSE PLANTS. U. S. Dept. Agr. Misc. Pub. 

 101, 214 pp., illus. 1931. 



