The Big Belt Mountains are a broad, elongate, northwest-southeast 

 trending, uplifted arch of metasedimentary rocks, limestone and 

 limited shale. They are bounded by the Missouri River Valley on 

 the west, with a gravel-covered foreland sloping gently toward 

 the river. Major streams in the Big Belt Mountains are Beaver 

 and Deep Creeks on the west, and Atlanta and Big Camas Creeks on 

 the east (adapted from Holdorf and Sirucek 1988) . 



The Elkhorn Mountains are composed of northward-trending 

 alternating ridges and valleys. They are primarily underlain by 

 metasedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Boulder Batholith that 

 have been faulted and folded and cut by rhyolitic rocks. Broad 

 intermontane valleys form the northern, eastern, and southwestern 

 boundaries. The Elkhorn Mountains converge on the Boulder 

 Mountains to the northwest. The division between these two 

 ranges is arbitrarily placed along the valleys of Beavertown and 

 Prickly Pear creeks. On the south the Elkhorn Mountains blend 

 into unnamed hills north of the Jefferson River. Principal 

 perennial streams in the Elkhorn Mountains area are Crow and 

 Beaver creeks on the east. Warm Springs, Elkhorn, Muskrat, and 

 Prickly Pear creeks on the west, and McClellan Creek on the north 

 (adapted from Holdorf and Sirucek 1988) . Large areas of the 

 northeastern end burned in a 1988 wildfire. 



The study area consisted of all Helena National Forest lands 

 within the Big Belt and Elkhorn Mountains. The Dry Range to the 

 east of the Big Belt Mountains was to have been included within 

 the study area; however lack of reliable access to Forest Service 

 tracts intermixed amongst private lands and an abrupt and sudden 

 end to the field season has left the study of this area for a 

 future project. Surveys were not conducted on private lands, 

 Bureau of Land Management property, or other public holdings 

 within the study area. Survey areas are listed and mapped in 

 Appendix 1. 



METHODS 



A preliminary list of 48 state rare plant taxa known or suspected 

 to occur in the Big Belt and Elkhorn Mountains was compiled in 

 the first stage of setting species targets (Appendix 2) . The 

 Townsend Ranger District of the Helena National Forest developed 

 a list of 27 Region 1 Forest Service Sensitive plants which might 

 potentially occur on the district during the preparation of a 

 biological evaluation of an allotment permit renewal. In 

 addition, a search of the Montana Natural Heritage Program 

 database revealed 21 plants of special concern which occur within 

 the same watersheds and counties as the Big Belt and Elkhorn 

 Mountains, and thus potentially might occur there. 



Using the preliminary list, brief habitat profiles were compiled 

 from readily available sources (USDA Forest Service 1992a; Lesica 



