446 EXPLORATIONS ACROSS THE GREAT BASIN OF UTAH. 



Torrcy in Fremont's First Report, 1843, Bept. 1845, p. 95, and Fremont's Second Report, 

 1845, p. 317, tab. 3; Sarcacantlms, Nuttall in PI Gambel, p. 184; Sarcobatus vermicu- 

 laris, Torrey in Sitgr. Rep. p. 1GU, in Stansb. Rep. p. 394, in Bot. Whipple, p. 130;* 

 Pulpy Thorn or Pulpy-leaved Thorn of Lewis and Clarke; Grcasewood of the present 

 travelers and settlers. 



This curious and important plant is found on the arid saline plains, principally on 

 clayey s< >il, which 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. Hayden) to the Upper 

 Platte River [Fremont, If. Fiiyelmann), and Upper Canadian (Dr. James) east of the 

 Rocky Mountains to the plains of the Columbia (Lewis and Clarke, Douglas, Fremont), 

 VVAh\Frrmont, Stansbury) through the Basin to Carson Valley (//. Engelmann) and 



(1801) and collected by Dr. James (18111), this shrub was first described, 1840, by 

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

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

 account of the plants collected by the Prince of Neu Wied as a new genus 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 Frcmontia. It is a great pity that this 



Californian shrub bears Fremont's name, the wide-spread Grcasewood of the western 

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

 of explorers to the millions, who now do or in time to come will know and value this 

 plant 



The Grcasewood forms a scraggy, stunted shrub, 2 or 3 to as much as 6 or 8 

 feet high; in I tali, it is commonly 3-4 feet high. The stems are scarcely ever more 

 than 1 or 2 and rarely 3 inches thick, knotty, flattened, twisted, and often with irregu- 

 lar ridges and holes (the scars of decayed branches); sometimes, however, many straight 



They are covered with a. compact, smoothish or slightly roughened, light-gray bark. 

 The woo.l is very hard and compact, of light-yellow, in the core light-brownish, color, 

 with very thin annual layers, in younger plants about ; \, in older ones J of a line or 

 less thick. The oldest stems seen showed 20-25 rather indistinct rings, and were con- 

 sequently so many years old. The numerous smaller branches have a smooth, shining, 

 white bark, and are beset with white spines at right angles; these spines are indurated 

 brandies of two kinds. The sharper and shorter ones are real spines, scarcely ever 

 more than h-l inch long; they bear leaves only, or, in the axils of these, female flowers, 

 and are 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 fallen 

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

 also Literal spines. The flower-bearing branches are very often secondary axillary 

 productions closely under the sterile primary branch, which constitutes the spine, so 

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

 thick and pulpy, linear, or often narrowed toward the base, flattened or even slightly 



