SALTBUSHES AND THEIR ALLIES IN THE UNITED STATES 3 
flowers, of two kinds (staminate and pistillate), which many people 
would fail to recognize as flowers. The plants of some species bear 
both staminate and pistillate flowers; those of other species bear one 
kind only. The fruits are small, dry one-seeded pods.° 
A number of the saltbushes and their allies now growing on the 
arid western ranges are weeds, accidentally introduced from the 
Old World, which have made themselves very much at home in their 
new surroundings. Several species of the Australian saltbush were 
intentionally introduced into western America in 1882 (15).° 
_ The saltbushes proper, as well as their near allies, like the grease- 
wood of the Great Basin region, the Russian thistle, the 1odine-weed, 
the seablight, and the common lamb’s-quarter or goosefoot, are 
closely related to the beet, chard, and spinach, and a few of the 
wild species are used by man as “ greens.” Hence it might be ex- 
pected that many of them would be reasonably good forage plants 
wherever they grow. They are as truly forage plants ~ in their 
natural distribution areas as are timothy or alfalfa in cultivated 
fields, and some species cover hundreds and even thousands of square 
miles. Furthermore, many of them grow on land and under con- 
ditions that will produce no other plants of economic value. Sev- 
eral grow readily in soil so alkaline as to be useless for the pro- 
duction of practically all cultivated and most of the other wild 
species, and nearly all of them are adapted to a degree of aridity 
too great for most of the better known forage plants. The very 
characteristics that make many of these plants “bad ” weeds—their 
abundant seed production, great viability of seeds, effective methods 
of seed dispersal, ready adaptability to a wide variety of soils and 
climatic conditions; in short, their aggressive adaptability among 
other plants to a new country—make them “ good” range plants, 
if they are palatable to livestock. As additional feed on areas pro- 
ducing other forage they are also important. It is not intended 
to suggest that they are always first-class stock feed, for they do 
not furnish excellent forage, as a general thing. Stock can and 
‘do subsist upon them, however, and every year thousands of meat 
animals reach the abattoirs without having had much of any other 
kind of feed. 
_ Feeding experiments have shown that under certain conditions 
some saltbushes and allied plants may be poisonous to sheep, a very 
important matter to the sheepmen who use the winter ranges of the 
Great Basin region. 
RESULTS OF EXAMINATION AND ANALYSIS 
GOOSEFOOT FAMILY 
ALLENROLFEA OCCIDENTALIS (S. Wats.) Kuntze 
a a i ae —— —<— = 
- 
Allenrolfea occidentalis is a curious leafless bush, usually 3 to 6 
| feet high, the main stems of which are woody and generally grayish- 
vhite. The growing ends of the smaller stems are bluish or grayish- 
°>Technically the fruits of these plants are dry, close-fitting, one-seeded pericarps 
alled achenes. Subtending the achene, sometimes coalescent with it, is a pair of bracts, 
hich may be variously modified into wings, teeth, ridges, or tubercles, or may be 
mooth and leaflike. This achene with its bracts is referred to as a “seed pod ” 
enone this bulletin in order to avoid botanical technicalities that are of taxonomic 
alue only. 
Italic numbers in parentheses throughout the bulletin refer to Literature Cited, p. 38. 
