Creek supported subirrigated calcareous wet meadows and willow 

 communities; however, most of these are on private land and have 

 been degraded by livestock grazing. The only wetlands in the 

 Sage Creek area are along the main creek and around springs and 

 seeps. Most of these have remained in private ownership. 



Methods 



Prior to field work we obtained element occurrence printouts 

 of all known species of special concern in the Sage Creek area 

 from the Biological Conservation Database maintained by the 

 Montana Natural Heritage Program. This query produced the 

 following list of seven species: 



Astragalus terminalis 

 Calochortus bruneaunis 

 Halimolobos virgata 

 Spaeralcea munroana 

 Spaeromeria argentea 

 Townsendia florifer 

 Townsendia nuttallii 



We conducted our surveys of the Sage Creek area on June 19- 

 23, June 29, and July 27-29, 1995. Searches were made on foot in 

 both known and potential habitats of rare or sensitive species. 

 These included large expanses of zonal vegetation. However, we 

 paid special attention to unusual habitats such as wetlands and 

 rock outcrops. Survey transects are shown in Fig. 2. 



We kept a running list of vascular plant species observed 

 during the surveys. When we encountered a population of a 

 species of special concern we completed an element occurrence 

 field form and mapped the population on standard USGS 7.5 minute 

 quad maps. Recorded data included location, associated 



