Figure 7. — Bigelow sage- 

 brush (A. bigeloviij 

 growing at the Snow 

 Field Station. The 

 ruler is 30 cm long. 



Low sagebrush ranges from southern Colorado to western Montana and west throughout 

 Utah and Idaho to northern California, Oregon, and Washington. Type locality is listed 

 as "arid plains of Lewis (Snake] River" (Beetle 1960). Normally its sites are drier 

 and more rocky than those on which big sagebrush occurs. Low sagebrush and black sage- 

 brush rarely occur in intermixed stands, for example, the Lost River-Lemhi Range area 

 of Idaho (E. F. Schlatterer, letter 12/1/77). In areas where the distribution of these 

 two species overlaps, low sagebrush is usually found in the more moist habitats or at 

 slightly higher elevations than black sagebrush (Ward 1953) . 



Use. --On winter ranges and to a limited extent on summer ranges, low sagebrush is 

 browsed by big game and livestock. There is considerable variation in how animals 

 browse it in different locations. In Nevada, the gray-green form may be heavily browsed 

 while the green form is only lightly browsed (Brunner 1972). Sage grouse also appar- 

 ently prefer the lighter form to the darker one. Similarly, black sagebrush also has 

 two color morphs, with the light (gray-green) one preferred by browsing animals. 



Artemisia bigelovii Gray. (Bigelow sagebrush) 



Bigelow sagebrush is a low shrub 2 to 4 dm high with numerous spreading branches. 

 The flowering stems are slender and erect and bear inflorescences that are long, narrow 

 panicles with short, recurved branches (figs. 5b, 7). New growth is covered with a 

 silvery-canescent pubescence. 



The leaves of vegetative branches are similar to those of big sagebrush. They are 

 narrowly cuneate, 1 to 2 cm long, 2 to 5 mm wide, and normally tridentate, but may show 

 various abnormal tips. The odor of crushed leaves is mild like that of mountain big 

 sagebrush {A. tridentata ssp. vaseyana) . 



The heads are arranged into elongated, narrow panicles and normally contain 1 but 

 occasionally to 2 ray flowers and 1 to 3, usually 2, disc flowers (fig. 3). The tur- 

 binate involucre consists of 8 to 12 short, densely tomentose bracts 2 to 4 mm long and 

 r.5 to 2.5 mm broad. Flowering occurs from August to October. Cleaned seed averages 

 5,975 per gram (2,710,000 per pound). 



Bigelow sagebrush closely resembles and is often mistaken for low forms of big 

 sagebrush produced by overgrazing and burning. In contrast to big sagebrush, however, 

 it has ray flowers. Furthermore, lobes of A. bigelovii' s vegetative leaves are always 

 more shallow and more sharply dentate than those of big sagebrush. 



9 



