UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
MISCELLANEOUS PUBLICATION NO. 101 
WASHINGTON, D. C. 
ISSUED JULY, 193i 
IMPORTANT WESTERN BROWSE PLANTS ~ 
By WititiAmM A, DAYTON, 
Plant Ecologist, Branch of Research, Forest Service 
7 
_ CONTENTS 
Page ' Page 
Importance of browse on range____~- 1 | Classification of western browse spe- 
Palatability OL wWrowses———— 2 eo 4 cies by miscellaneous uses or prop- 
Important western browse families, QTE See OR Se REG ee Uh ee 179 
genera, and species_____---_-__- 6), Literature scitedi2a23 se aces ee wes 180 
BED aS Wp Re Fa ON 190 
IMPORTANCE OF BROWSE ON RANGE 
The term “browse” has a double significance. Its primary mean- 
ing is shoots or sprouts, especially of tender twigs and stems of 
woody plants, with their leaves, as cropped (browsed) more or less 
by domestic and wild animals. Browse is also a generic term, 
applied to shrubby, woody vine, or small tree vegetation, whether 
palatable or not, forming one of the four main groups into which 
range vegetation is popularly divided, the others being grasses, 
egrasslike plants (4. e., sedges and rushes and their allies), and weeds 
(i. e., nongrasslike herbs). : 
It is impossible to state exactly how many browse species occur in 
the United States, or even in the West; the number, however, for 
the United States, runs easily into the thousands. During the past 
22 years approximately 1,000 species of shrubs, undershrubs, and 
woody vines, embracing 225 genera and 68 families, have been col- 
lected on national forest ranges by forest officers, and this number 
is being continually augmented. Large areas of national-forest and 
other land of the West remain practically unexplored botanically. 
Western shrubs are enormously varied in their distribution, being 
found from the seashore (and below sea level in such depressions as 
Death Valley) to timber line and, greatly depauperate, of course, at 
the very limit of vegetation on the high mountains; they occur in the 
most arid places where vegetation will endure and also in the wettest 
of sites such as water-logged bogs. Very few forms of plant life 
will endure a greater degree of alkalinity or salinity than will certain 
shrubs, and, on the other hand, various bushes are commonly met 
with in the richest humus. It is impossible to give the exact acreage 
ease 31 1 
