146 MISC. PUBLICATION 101, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTURE 
and trailing) herbs. In addition several Old World species of the 
genus (all herbs) are naturalized in the West. Although the herbage 
of a number of the herbaceous bedstraws is palatable to sheep, the __ 
browse value of the genus is almost negligible, the shrubby species 
having as a rule coarse woody twigs and small, thickish, often prickle- 
like leaves. 
HONEYSUCKLE FAMILY (CAPRIFOLIACEAE) 
AMERICAN TWINFLOWER (LINNAEA BOREALIS AMERICANA, SYNS. L. AMERICANA 
AND L. BOREALIS OF AMERICAN AUTHORS NOT (GRONOY.) L.) 
This vinelike, trailing, evergreen perennial, hardly more than an 
herb, with creeping, slender, somewhat woody stems 6 to 24 inches 
long, is found from Greenland to Alaska and south to California, 
New Mexico, Michigan, and western Maryland. It is typical of cool, 
moist, mossy, dense conifer stands, but sometimes occurs in semidry 
old burns or in willow areas. As a forage plant it is usually negh- 
gible, but has been observed to be browsed by sheep in some localities. 
Its local names include deer vine, ground vine, linnaea, twin sisters, 
two-eyed berries, and yerba buena. 
Sheep herders on the Plumas National Forest, Calif., declare that 
this plant is very poisonous to sheep, the effect being very similar to 
that of black laurel but much more severe, the sheep usually dying a 
few hours after eating it. The plant appears to have no history 
in toxicological literature. It was submitted in 1914 in a plant 
collection made on an area of the Colville National Forest, Wash., 
where sheep poisoning had taken place and where it is reported 
to be abundant, and later the same year from the Wenaha (now 
part of the Umatilla) Forest, Oreg., from a supposedly infested 
area. Qn neither of these areas was there any proof that this plant 
was responsible for the losses complained of, and the evidence 
against the species, while of interest, is purely of the hearsay order. 
HONEYSUCKLES (LONICERA SPP.) 
This is a very large and widely distributed genus of shrubs and 
woody vines, frequently known as twinberry, and is found chiefly 
in the temperate portions of the Old World. About 29 species occur 
in the United States, including the genera Distegia and Xylosteon 
of some botanists, of which 9 species are exclusively confined to the 
Eastern States, 4 are natives of Asia and Europe escaped from culti- 
vation and naturalized, chiefly in the Eastern States, while 16 are 
indigenous to the West. Ordinarily these plants are unpalatable to 
livestock, though there is no doubt but that they are sometimes 
browsed by sheep and, to a less degree, by cattle. Occasionally 
reports of their poisoning livestock are heard, and Pammel (95) 
states that “some of the loniceras are possibly poisonous.” Schnei- 
der (178) states that “the fruit of all species of Lonicera is emetic 
a aegc c, However, birds frequently consume honeysuckle 
oerries. 
Bearberry honeysuckle (Z. involucrata), known also as bearberry, 
fly honeysuckle, inkberry, involucred honeysuckle, and skunkberry, 
the range of which, in general, may be stated as New Brunswick 
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