B151 

 (leaf 2) 



regions of Utah and Nevada, the local longflower snowberry (/S. 

 longiflo'rus) is largely unpalatable to livestock. The palatability of 

 the other western species, in general, varies from poor to fair for 

 cattle, except in California, the Intermoimtain region, and the South- 

 west, where it is fairly good or perhaps good for sheep and goats but 

 practically worthless for horses. These shrubs are also fair to fairly 

 good forage for deer and elk. 



The relatively low, shrubby snowberries, whose foliage is mostly 

 accessible to livestock, withstand grazing very well ; often, because of 

 their abundance, they are important factors in the forage supply 

 on many ranges. These plants are especially valuable in the Inter- 

 mountain region on both cattle and sheep ranges ; Chapline 3 regards 

 them as moderately palatable goat browse in the Southwest. These 

 shrubs usually drop their leaves in the fall, and hence are of little 

 value on winter ranges. 



Saponin, a poisonous drug, occurs in the leaves (but not the fruit) 

 of common snowberry (8. al'bus, syn. /S. raceme' sus) and of spread- 

 ing or trailing snowberry (S. mol'lis}* Poisoning caused by com- 

 mon snowberry has been reported from the Old World ; consequently, 

 some authorities include this genus among the plants suspected of 

 being poisonous. However, so far as the Forest Service has knowl- 

 edge, no case of loss or even sickness has ever been attributed to this 

 genus on the western ranges. It seems probable that, if saponiii is 

 present in the western species, it occurs in too small amounts to be 

 important physiologically. 5 No ill effects were produced when the 

 crushed fruits of whortleleaf snowberry (S. vaccinioides] were forc- 

 ibly fed to sheep in experiments at the Salina Experiment Station. 5 



Common snowberry and mountain snowberry are the two most 

 common and widely distributed western snowberries. Common snow- 

 berry, an erect shrub 2 to 4 or sometimes 5 feet high, has slender, 

 smooth branches; rather thin, oval, nearly entire to somewhat toothed 

 leaves from three-fourths of an inch to 2 inches long. Its flower 

 clusters are both terminal and axillary, the corollas being about one- 

 fourth of an inch long, broadly bell-shaped, and hairy within. The 

 fruits are white, globose, and from one-fourth to three-eighths of an 

 inch in diameter. This is the most widely distributed species of the 

 genus, ranging from Nova Scotia to Alaska, California, Colorado, 

 South Dakota, Minnesota, Kentucky, and North Carolina. It is an 

 important browse species and one of the most abundant snowberries 

 in the West. In contrast, mountain snowberry, a spreading shrub 

 averaging about 2 to 4 feet in height, is a common species in the 

 mountains from eastern Oregon and Idaho to Colorado. New Mexico, 

 and California. Frequently abundant, it is often the dominant shrub 

 over small areas. In Utah and western Colorado, this shrub fre- 

 quently abounds in aspen, but elsewhere is usually associated with 



8 Chapline W R. PRODUCTION OF GOATS ON FAR WESTERN RANGES. U. S. Dept. Agr. 

 Bull. 749, 35 pp., illus. 1919. 



* Greshoff, M. PHYTOCHEMICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT KEW. Roy. Bot. Card. Kew, Bull. 

 Misc. Inform. 1909 : [397]-418. 1909. 



4 Marsh, C. D., Clawson, A. B., and Roe, G. C. FOUR SPECIES OF RANGE PLANTS NOT 

 POISONOUS TO LIVESTOCK. U. S. Dept. Agr. Tech. Bull. 93, 10 pp. 1928. 



