FOREST AND RANGE RESOURCES OF UTAH 



37 



tain bromegrass and violet wheatgrass have given good results above 

 8,000 feet where the rainfall exceeds 25 inches a year. The results 

 with native species are encouraging and suggest the desirability of 

 testing out more of them. It appears that it would be worth while 

 also to study the possibility of plant introduction from foreign coun- 

 tries and of plant selection and breeding to develop more hardy 

 strains. 



POISONOUS PLANTS 



LOSSES FROM POISONOUS PLANTS 



In view of the heavy losses caused by poisonous plants in Utah, 

 any plan for handling the natural resources of the State would not 

 be complete without some provision for dealing with this problem. 

 General discussion of stock poisoning plants on the range is 

 given by Marsh in Department of Agriculture Bulletin 1245 (4). 

 Statistics on the losses of stock from poisoning in the State as a whole 

 are not available, but for the national forests alone, which comprise 

 only 14 per cent of the area of the State and provide grazing for 

 about one-third of the livestock, the losses for five years are given 

 in Table 2. 



Table 



-Losses of livestock from poisoning on Utah national forests, 1925-1929 



Year 



Cattle and 

 horses 



Sheep and 

 goats 



Year 



Cattle and 

 horses 



Sheep and 

 goats 



1925 



1,490 



1,326 



920 



5,928 

 6,464 

 5,378 



1928 



1,070 

 990 



5,083 

 5,202 



1926 _ 



1929 



1927 





SPECIES 



A striking thing is the small number of poisonous plants com- 

 pared to the many thousands of nonpoisonous plants that grow in 

 the State. Sampson (6, p. 242) in Kange and Pasture Management 

 states that — 



Of the many species of poisonous plants occurring throughout the United 

 States those contained in six genera are probably responsible for at least 75 

 per cent of all livestock poisoning. 



Of all the plants that occur in Utah, probably not over 10 cause 

 serious losses to livestock. In view of the serious losses caused by 

 such a limited number of plants anyone interested in the raising 

 of livestock should learn to identify these at sight. 



The principal poisonous plants occurring in Utah are as follows : 

 Larkspur {Delphinium), loco {Astragalus and Oxytropis), death 

 camas {Zygadenus), monkshood {Aconitum), water hemlock 

 {Cicuta), lupine {Lupinus), whorled milkweed {Asclepias), and 

 western sneezeweecl {Helerdum hoopesii). Other plants that occa- 

 sionally cause losses of stock are: Gambel oak {Quercus gambelii), 

 and chokecherry {Pmnus). 



LARKSPUR 



Larkspur {Delphinium) receives its name from the peculiarly 

 shaped blossoms. This is one of the distinguishing features by 



