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II. SPECIES INFORMATION 



A. CLASSIFICATION 



1. SCIENTIFIC NAME: Townsendia spathulata Nutt. 



2. COMMON NAME: Sword townsendia 



3. FAMILY: Asteraceae (Sunflower Family) 



4. GENDS: Townsendia is a North American genus, variably referred 

 to as the daisy, Easter daisy, stemless daisy or Townsendia 

 genus. It was named after an early collector, David Townsend, 

 1787-1858 of West Chester, PA. 



It is coincidental that sword townsendia occurs in the Limestone 

 Hills above the town of Townsend, which was reportedly named 

 after the wife of a Northern Pacific Railroad president. 



5. SPECIES: T. spathulata refers to the Greek word for broad sword, 

 as reflected in the shape of the leaves. 



This species epithet has previously been misapplied to T. 

 condensata (Hitchcock and Cronquist 1966) , which is a more 

 widespread alpine plant of the Rocky Mountains from Alberta to 

 central Idaho and northwest Wyoming, documented in Montana from 

 Glacier and Park counties (Hitchcock et al. 1973) and also 

 tracked as a state species of special concern. 



B. PRESENT LEGAL OR OTHER FORMAL STATUS 



1. FEDERAL STATUS 



a. U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE: Sword townsendia is placed in 

 the "3C" category, meaning that it is no longer being considered 

 for listing as Endangered or Threatened, having been proven to be 

 "more abundant or widespread than was previously believed and/or 

 not subject to any identifiable threat" as clarified in the most 

 recent Federal Notice of Review (FR Vol. 58, No. 188). 



b. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT: At the time this study initiated in 

 1992, sword townsendia had a proposed status of sensitive (USDI 

 Bureau of Land Management 1992), but it has since been taken off 

 the proposed BLM state list entirely (USDI Bureau of Land 

 Management 1993). 



C. U.S. FOREST SERVICE: None. 



2. STATE: Sword townsendia has a current state rank of "S3", 

 meaning that it may be vulnerable to threats but is not 

 immediately imperiled. This provides basis for removing it from 

 the state list of species of concern, except that it is a 



