IMPORTANT WESTERN BROWSE PLANTS 27 
American mistletoe (P. flavéscens), the State flower of Oklahoma, 
has commercial value for Christmas decorations and medicinal prop- 
erties (78). 
BUCKWHEAT FAMILY (POLYGONACEAE) 
ERIOGONUMS (ERIOGCNUM SPP.) 
Several species of the huge, essentially western, and mostly her- 
baceous genus Eriogonum are low shrubs, and the flower and fruit- 
ing heads of these are relished more or less by goats and sheep. 
Slender buckwheatbrush (Z. microthecum), known in the Toyabe 
Mountains of Nevada as sheep sage, is a low shrubby perennial, 
usually 6 to 12 inches but sometimes as much as 24 inches high, 
found on dry plains, prairies, table-lands and mesas, and up to 
middle elevations in the mountains. It is one of the most widely 
distributed species of the genus, occurring from western Nebraska 
to Colorado, Arizona, California, Washington, and Montana. The 
rather small, compounded cymes of usually pinkish flowers appear 
from June to October, the buckwheatlike fruits maturing and dis- 
seminating from September to November. Although the forage 
value of this plant varies with its associates and local abundance, in 
general goats, sheep, and cattle exhibit a fondness for the fiowers, 
fruits, and tops, and Griffiths (48, p. 56) ranks it as “of much 
importance in the higher foothills and lower mountains” of Ari- 
zona. 
Wright buckwheatbrush (/. wrightii) of the arid plains and 
foothills of southwestern United States is regarded in parts of 
Arizona and locally elsewhere as a feed fairly good for goats and 
sheep and fair for cattle. 
GOOSEFOOT FAMILY (CHENOPODIACEAE) 
SALTBUSHES (ATRIPLEX SPP.) 
The saltbush genus is a large group, of world-wide distribution, 
embracing about 150 species. Of these approximately 60 occur in 
the United States, mainly in the West. The Great Basin with 32 
species (124), and California with 28 species (65, pt. 4), form the 
center of distribution, but the genus is also well developed in Colo- 
rado, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, and western Texas. Many 
of these species are herbaceous and probably all are salt tolerant. 
A few species, such as garden orach (A. Aortensis) and A. hastata, 
are occasionally grown as potherbs. ‘The salty taste of the herbage 
of many of these plants evidently enhances their palatability to 
livestock, at least at certain times, but this property is also hkely 
to impart a bad flavor to milk and might possibly have a bad 
effect where unweaned calves, lambs, and kids are pastured. An 
admixture of grasses or other feed is doubtless desirable on saltbush 
range. 
Tt is generally admitted that the genus Atriplex is one of the 
most important native forage groups in the great interior mesa of 
Australia which forms the chief sheep-grazing region of the 
continent. Jared G. Smith (1/24) quotes Baron Von Mueller, 
Australian botanist, to the effect that many of the valuable quali- 
ties of Australian wools are due to the abundance of this and other 
