IMPORTANT WESTERN BROWSE PLANTS 63 
ably also occurring in northern Arizona). It is common between 
about 7,000 and 11,000 feet in moist conifer woods. The fruit is 
exceedingly profuse and, while edible, somewhat insipid. The 
browse value of this species varies in different localities and at dif- 
ferent seasons. C. N. Woods regards it as excellent forage in the 
Dixie region of southwestern Utah; in some other areas, however, 
(for example, the La Sal Mountains of southeastern Utah), it is con- 
sidered inferior. 
Redbud serviceberry (A. rubescens), with small, unusually nar- 
row and acute, many-toothed leaves and red flower buds, occupies a 
belt stretching from southwestern Colorado, through northwestern 
New Mexico, southern Utah, and Nevada, and possibly extending 
down into northern Arizona. It inhabits rocky, often granitic situ- 
ations and in many localities makes up a considerable part of the 
vegetation. In the spring, as the leaves unfold, goats and sheep 
take it fairly well, and cattle moderately, but in summer it is almost 
worthless. On fall range it is cropped to some extent. 
Utah serviceberry (A. utahensis) occurs both as a low and high 
bush, 114 to 16 feet high, in foothills and on slopes of medium eleva- 
tion, from Colorado and Utah to Nevada and New Mexico, and 
perhaps more widely (134, 99, 106, 107). The dry, pubescent fruit 
is yellowish to orange in color and of poor quality. The species 
is grazed moderately to heavily by cattle in early spring and is a 
good to excellent sheep and goat browse. 
HAWTHORNS (CRATAEGUS SPP.) 
Crataegus is an enormous genus, but only about a dozen species 
occur in the Western States, of which the two following are clearly 
the most important. The others furnish hardly more than a small 
_ quantity of local forage for domestic animals. 
Black hawthorn (Crataegus douglasii, syn. C. brevispina), called 
also black haw, Douglas haw(thorn), and short-spined hawthorn, 
or western thorn apple (/3/), is a shrub or small tree, sometimes 35 
feet high but mostly not over half that height. The large, blackish 
haws are sweetish, mealy, and edible but vary considerably in quality, 
those of some trees having a very good flavor while others are rather 
insipid. The exact range of the species is somewhat disputed, par- 
ticularly toward the east, owing chiefly to divergencies of taxonomic 
opinion; but in general it may be stated as from British Columbia 
to California and possibly New Mexico, Wyoming, Minnesota, and 
Michigan—as a rule along or near streams and in bottom lands and 
swales, often in association with willows, cornel, chokecherry, and 
yew. Black hawthorn has been collected in the West at elevations 
of 900 to 5,500 feet, but generally in deep, rich soils only. 
Black hawthorn, although one of the least thorny members of its 
genus, is often avoided by livestock and so is ranked by some as 
poor forage. The palatability of the foliage, however, varies from 
poor to fairly good, or sometimes good. In northern California it is 
occasionally one of the more important of the secondary browse 
species for cattle. Ingram notes that in central Oregon the tender 
shoots are sometimes cropped by cattle and sheep, and that in south- 
western Oregon it is apparently relished by cattle in spite of its 
thorns, In the Wenatchee region of central Washington, however, 
