CONCLUSION 



Although an attempt was made by this project to assess 

 Region Five lands for MPSSC, the results should not be 

 considered definitive or complete. Even when intense plant 

 searches are conducted at appropriate times of the year, some 

 targets are probably inevitably overlooked. In this case the 

 searches were neither intense nor, in most cases, conducted at 

 an appropriate time. Because of this, some precautions should 

 be taken. 



Certain areas should be revisited for more intense 

 surveys earlier in the growing season before weed control 

 measures are taken. The areas where this has been recommended 

 were chosen based on the presence of significant native plant 

 communities and geographical proximity to known occurrences of 

 MPSSC. At most sites, however, the areas with severe weed 

 problems (where control should be focused first) are not 

 native communities. Bluewater Springs Trout Hatchery is an 

 exception which will require development of a special weed 

 control strategy. 



Weed control should be aimed at carefully chosen targets 

 and based on positive weed identification. Too often weed 

 crews have sprayed populations of sensitive species. This has 

 not been limited to small or inconspicuous species; during the 

 summer of 1993 populations of Penstemon lemhiensis and 

 Veratrum calif ornicum , two large, showy, sensitive species 

 which cannot be mistaken for any weeds, were sprayed on public 

 lands in Montana. Besides MPSSC, the general native flora 

 should also be spared from weed control measures; if native 

 plants are killed openings are left for weeds. Members of 

 weed crews need to be familiar with their targets. 



Despite these potential dangers, it is acknowledged that 

 weed infestations are generally more detrimental to native 

 plant species and communities than appropriate weed control 

 measures. Many, if not most, of the sites visited during this 

 project host severe infestations of weeds which warrant 

 immediate control actions. A summary of the results and 

 recommendations of this report is presented in Table 4 which 

 follows. 



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