332 
Psyche 
[December 
Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. This area is approximately 
35 square miles and the mesa top stands 1000 to 2000 ft above the 
surrounding valleys. Intermittent streams dissect the surface into 
four major north-south gulches draining into the Gunnison River and 
a major gulch drains each of the east and west sides of the mesa 
(Plates i and 2). Private ranches make up about 10% of the area; 
10% is the Black Mesa Experimental Forest and Range, adminis- 
tered jointly by the United States Forest Service and Colorado State 
University at Fort Collins; the rest is in the Gunnison National 
Forest. 
According to William Knott, a lifelong resident and forest ranger, 
the phytotopography of the mesa has not changed since settlement in 
1880, except that the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) 
was not present until 1920. Boundaries of grasslands and forested 
tracts are largely unchanged, except for the results of the Indian 
Wars in 1870-80 during which several extensive forest tracts were 
burned by the Indians as a “scorched earth” policy. These burned 
areas and a few aspen groves with burned or sawed spruce stumps 
are easily distinguished from the virgin forests. The Indians used 
the mesa primarily as a hunting ground during the summer and 
several localities have numerous artifacts scattered over the surface 
as evidence of repeated summer encampments. 
Although the United States Geological Survey Topographic Maps 
were made from aerial photographs taken in 1955, the boundaries of 
chaparral, forest, and grasslands are accurate to minute detail even 
at the time of this writing (1971). The only changes are a small 
acreage of timber sales, construction of the Morrow Point and Blue 
Mesa Dams and Reservoirs within the Black Canyon itself, and the 
clearing for high tension power lines across the southwest corner of 
the Mesa. 
The major forest component is Engelmann spruce (Picea engel- 
manni), alpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) and quaking aspen (Populus 
tremuloides) in mixed or monotypic stands (Tietjen et al ., 1967). 
Upland meadows, which are the primary habitats for Arphia , contain 
the bunch grasses Festuca thurberi , F. idahoensis and Stipa letter- 
mani plus the forbs Geranium fremontii , Chrysopsis villosa, Erigeron 
macranthus , Lathyrus leucanthus , Agoseris spp. and the shrubs 
Chrysotkamnus parryi and Potentilla fruticosa as the dominant plants 
in terms of herbage production (Paulsen, 1969). As can be seen 
from the map (Plate 2), the grasslands follow the drainages and 
were probably maintained as grasslands by the activities of the once 
