446 EXPLORATIO^^S ACROSS THE GEE AT BASI:N^ OF UTAH. 



Torroj hi Fremonfs First Beiwrt, 1843, Bept 1845, p. 95, and Fremonfs Second Beporf, 

 1845, jp. 317, lah. 3; Sarcacantliiis, Nuttall in PI. Ganibel, p. 184; Sarcobatiis verniicu- 

 laii:^, Torrey in Sitgr. Bep. p. 169, in Stansh. Bep. p. 394, in Bot. Whipple, p. 130;* 

 Bulpu Thorn or Bidpy-havcd Thorn of Lewis and Clarke; Grcaseivood oi the present 

 travelers and settlers. 



Tills curious and impoiiant j^Iant is found on tlie arid saline plains, principally on 

 clayey soil, wliicli in the wet season is moist, and on the border of salt-lakes, often covering 

 large patches, from below Fort Pierre on the Missouri (Dr. Haydcn) to the Upper 

 Platte Iilver {Fremont, II. Fngelmunn), and Upper Canadian (Dr. James) east of the 

 Rocky Mountnins to the j^lains of the Columbia (Leivis and Clarke, Douglas, Fremont), 



Utah (Fremont, Stansh 



Basin to Carson Valley {II. Engclmann) and 



down to the Gila River {Emorij). Though discovered and noticed by Lewis and Clarke 

 (1804) and collected by Dr. James (1819), this shrub was first described, 1840, by 

 Hooker, in his North American Flora, from Oregon specimens, and was doubtfully 

 referred by him to Batis. A few years later, it was again described by Nees in his 

 account of the plants collected by the Prince of Ncit Wied as a new gemis under the 

 name of Sarcobatus, and very soon afterward, and without a knowledge of the publica- 

 tion by Xees, again by Torrey under that of Fremontia. It is a great pity that this 

 last name had tu give way to priority, though at present anuich handsomer and showy 

 Californian shrub bears Frdmont's name, the wide-spread Greasewood of the western 

 mountains and deserts would more fitly have commemorated tlie bold and hardy pioneer 

 of explorers to the millions, who now do or in time to come will knoAv and value tin's 



The Greasewood forms a scraffo-y, stunted 



Utah, it is commonly 3-4 feet high. The stems are scarcely 



6 or 8 



and 



moi 



knotty, flattened, twisted, and often Avith 



y are covered 



1 holes (the scars of decayed branches); sometimes, however, man} 

 from a single base, |-i inch "thick, 30 straight as to be used for 



sHghtly roughened, light-gray bark 



The wood is very hard and compact, of liglit-yellow, in the core light-brownish 

 with very thin annual layers, in younger plants about ^, in older ones J of 

 less thick. The oldest steins seen showed 20-25 rather indistinct rino-s and 1 



bark, and 



years old. The 



1 



laller branches have a smooth, sliining, 



1 1 r . 1 . -, mi 1 - ^'^'* singles; these spines are indurated 



branches of two knjds. The shairer and shorter ones are real spines, scarcely ever 

 moj-e than ^-l inch ong; they bear leaves only, or, in the axils of tliese, female flowers, 

 and nre terminated by a sharp point and never by a staminate spike. The other spines 

 are branchlets which did bear such a terminal spike, which, after flowering, has fidlen 

 away; they are 1-2 mches long sometimes even longer, when they are apt to bear 

 also lateral spmes. Tlie flower-bearmg branches are very often secondary axillary 

 produc ions clos.ly under the sterile primary branch, which constitutes thfspinc, so 

 that the spines often appear as axillary to the flower-bearing branches The leaves ire 

 thick and pulpy, hnear^ord^e^^ ,^^^ J^^^ o/evendh^X 



^ Compare S- Watson^a Ee vision of the Ameri(-in rw^^^^^TT ^~r. " — , ^- ..-.. 



Aineman Cbenopodiacea. m Pioc. Am. Ac. Art8 Sc. vol. i), p. 82 (1875), 



\ 



