purple sepals; in addition, the lip petal of C. 

 montanum is not spotted inside, although it may 

 have some purple veins at the base. Cypripedium 

 passerinum has short, flattened, greenish sepals, 

 and the lip is speckled with reddish-purple spots 

 inside. The two are also ecologically distinct; 

 C. montanum occurs in dry to fairly moist, open to 

 shaded upland coniferous forests, while C. 

 passerinum occurs in moist seepage areas, riparian 

 zones, and on the margins of sphagnum bogs. 



Hitchcock et al. (1969) state that the "...plants 

 of Montana are larger-leaved and larger-flowered 

 than those seen from farther north, and their 

 flowers seem to have the lower sepals more nearly 

 distinct. " 



D. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



1. RANGE: Cypripedium passerinum is mainly a boreal 

 species, distributed from Alaska and the Yukon 

 east to Quebec and the southern end of Hudson Bay, 

 and extending south to southeastern British 

 Columbia, northwestern Montana, and the Lake 

 Superior region (Hitchcock et al. 1969; Williams 

 and Williams 1983). It is "...one of the very few 

 members of the orchid family that grows within the 

 Arctic Circle" (Luer 1975) . The species is known 

 to occur on the Flathead and Lewis & Clark 

 national forests, in Region 1 (Northern Region) of 

 the U.S. Forest Service; this is the only area 

 where it is found in the lower 48 United States. 

 The distribution of C. passerinum in Montana is 

 shown in Figure 1, p. 4. The exact locations are 

 indicated on the maps provided in Section IV, pp. 

 35-45. 



2. CURRENT SITES (MONTANA): Cypripedium passerinum 

 is documented from ten sites: one is in Glacier 

 National Park, four are in the Bob Marshall 

 Wilderness Area, and five are in the Front Range 

 mountains east of the wilderness boundary. One 

 additional unverified location has been reported, 

 also in the Front Range mountains. The locations 

 of these sites, including the legal descriptions, 

 latitude and longitude, elevations, and USGS 

 topographic quadrangle names, are provided in 

 Table 1, p. 5. These are subdivided to indicate 

 those sites which occur wholly or partially on 

 U.S. Forest Service lands (Table lA) , and the site 

 which occurs on lands not managed by the U.S. 

 Forest Service (Table IB) . Field surveys were 

 conducted by the author on 20 June-1 July, and 12 

 July, 1988. Assistance with field research was 



