The field guides most commonly used to key out plants 

 were Dorn (1984) and Hitchcock and Cronquist (1973). 

 Nomenclature used in this report generally follows one or both 

 of these books. Names for target species coincides with the 

 conventions of the Montana Natural Heritage Program (Heidel 

 and Poole 1993) . 



RESULTS 



We located nearly a hundred populations of thirty-one 

 target species. The species and resulting rank 

 recommendations are listed in Table 2. This included two 

 native species not previously known from the state, 

 automatically added to the Montana state list of species of 

 concern, and a third which had been reported but not verified 

 was documented n the Montana for the first time. In 

 addition, a Delphinium taxon was discovered that was 

 previously tracked under two different species epithets. The 

 ensuing field and lab investigations will result in it being 

 named as a new subspecies. This does not include three other 

 species which have been or are in the process of being dropped 

 from further consideration by Montana Natural Heritage 

 Program: Castilleja rustica, Eriogonum cespitosum and 

 Orobancbe corymbosa. No further information on these taxa- are 

 given in this report. 



A total of 382 vascular plant taxa were identified in the 

 study area (Appendix B) . This indicates high species 

 diversity for an area spanning limited range of elevation. 



The remainder of this section is devoted to synopses of 

 each of the 30 target species. Descriptions of the taxa are 

 given to supplement floras (Dorn 1984, or Hitchcock and 

 Cronquist 1973) and to facilitate field identification. 

 Information is presented on the distribution and biology of 

 the species in addition to information specific to the 

 populations within the study area. For each target species, a 

 map showing its distribution in the study area is provided in 

 Appendix C, Information is conveyed concerning the 

 conservation status and management of each taxon. It is 

 recommended that some of the taxa be removed from further 

 consideration by the Bureau of Land Management, and this study 

 provides the basis for their exclusion. These occurrences 

 have not been entered into the Biological Conservation 

 Database, so Appendix D printouts are not supplied, but they 

 are documented on the Appendix C individual species 

 distribution maps. For those species which we recommend 

 retaining, more complete information is given including 

 technical descriptions of the taxa, and EOR's and 1:24,000 

 scale topographic maps showing precise locations and 

 boundaries of all populations (Appendix D) . Photographic 



