26 
Colorado Experiment Station 
narrow, i to 2 inches long, and pale green in color. The flowers are 
small, inconspicuous and greenish. 
Greasewood is characteristic of dry, alkali flats. It is distributed 
throughout the state, chiefly at lower elevations. 
It is likely to he confused with several other shrubs: Winter fat 
or winter sage (Burotia lanata) is a low shrub, coated with a mat 
of white, woolly hairs which may become reddish-brown. The com¬ 
mon shrubby salt-bushes {Atriplex cancscens and Atriplex confer- 
tifolia) are somewhat rigid or spinescent shrubs with smooth, white 
bark, much resembling greasewood. The leaves of the salt-bushes, 
however, are covered with minute scales, which give them a character¬ 
istic scurfy appearance. Those of greasewood are smooth. Further 
more, the leaves of the two salt-bushes given above are not long and 
slender, as in greasewood, but rather narrowly oblong in one, and 
oval in the other. The spiny Grayia (Grayia spinosa) also has mealy 
or scurfy leaves. The shrubby species of rabbit brush {Chrysothain- 
nus) may be distinguished from greasewood by their flowers, which 
resemble those of goldenrod. 
Greasewood is considered a forage plant, but is strongly sus- 
])ected of being poisonous at times. Prof. Chestnut reports on this 
plant as follows: “A correspondent in New Mexico states that on 
one occasion he counted as many as one hundred sheep that had been 
killed by eating the leaves of this plant. It is claimed that cows are 
not affected by eating it at any time and that sheep can eat it quite 
freely in winter. Death is perhaps due more to the bloating effect 
than to any poisonous substance which the plant contains/’ 
