92 



little cottonwood and willow brush." They to-day form a con- 

 spicuous element of the tree and shrub communities along the 

 river. With the willow and cottonwoods, we find an abundance 

 of buffalo berries, hawthorns, currants, and buckbrush. An 

 emigrant would naturally lump all the shrubs with the familiar 

 and conspicuous willow-cottonwood elements of the flora. 



From the diary of John Newman of Platteville, Wis., an emi- 

 grant who crossed the Black Fork country in 1857 we read: "A 

 more worthless country I have never seen. Wormwood and a 

 kind of golden rod extend miles on miles. . . . Some of the stock 

 ate the scurfy leaves of spine-covered plants. . . . Low flats of 

 dark green armed brush covered lots of the country along water 

 courses." Here again the "wormwood" alludes to the sage- 

 brush, Artemisia tridentata. The golden rod is no doubt a species 

 of rabbit brush, Chrysothamnus. These plant forms character- 

 ize vast areas of the region. The plants with "scurfy leaves" 

 relished by the stock was probably some species of salt bush. 

 The "spine-covered" plant may possibly have been A triplex 

 confer tifolia. The dark green areas of armed shrubs were prob- 

 ably greasewood flats. 



These studies seem to bring out the fact that the essential 

 elements of the flora of to-day are very similar to the conspicu- 

 ous floristic elements prevalent in this region seventy-five or a 

 hundred years ago. 



References 



1. Hanna, L. A. 1930. The Vascular Plants of the Rock Springs Quad- 

 rangle. Unpublished thesis. Uni. of Wyo. 



2. Nelson, Aven. 1898. The Red Desert of Wyoming. U. S. Dept. Agric. 

 Div. Agrost. Bull. 13. 



3. Coulter-Nelson. 1909. Manual of Rocky Mountain Botany. 



Casper Junior College 

 Casper, Wyoming 



