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NATURAL RESOURCES

MONTANA STATE LIBRARY

S 333.7 N7m2 C.I Todd
Grasslands.

S, Forest Service

STATE DOCUMENTS COLLECT 3N

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"Of all the things that live and
grow upon this earth, grass is the
most important. Should its harvest
fail for a single year, famine would
depopulate the earth."

—John James Ingalls

From the high plateaus of the Absaroka Range and the windswept Bighorn Mountains, to
the sandy prairies of eastern Montana, grasses grow that are well adapted to their environ-
ments. Montana has 60 million acres of the remaining 700 million acres of grasslands in the
nation. Of this acreage, 58 percent of the land area is rangeland, and 12 percent is woodland
that can be grazed. The grazing lands provide forage for tens of thousands of beef cattle,
thousands of sheep and horses, and many wild grazing animals; the other 30 percent of
grassland provides timber, recreation, and watersheds.

The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation thanks
the University of Washington Press for the use of drawings by Hitchcock
from its publication, "Grasses of the Pacific Northwest."

lUN 2 2^^^"^

What is a Grass?

A grass can be any one of a family of
plants with long, narrow leaves, jointed
stems, flowers that grow in spikelets, and
seedlike fruit. Grass may spread from
seed, runners on top of the ground, or
stems (rhizomes) underground. A grass
may be anything from the tiniest alpine
plant that grows no more than an inch tall,
to the bamboo that looks like a tree and
may grow to 120 feet.

Grass in the Plant Conununity

Grasses are only one part of a natural
plant community — Montana's grasslands
also contain forbs, sedges, and shrubs.
Forbs are broad-leafed plants like sunflow-
ers, wild geraniums, asters, and lupine
that bloom early when soil moisture is
high. Sedges, such as the Rocky Mountain
fringed gentian, usually grow in moist
areas. Generally their stems are triangular
and solid; they have three rows of narrow,
pointed leaves, and flowers that may be

very tiny. These plants belong to the same
large family as the Egyptian papyrus used
to make paper in ancient times. Montana's
native shrubs include the wild rose, wil-
low, chokecherry, buffaloberry, and Ore-
gon grape. The fruits from some of these
shrubs gave both Indians and settlers a de-
licious food that was high in vitamin C.

What Grows Where?

Altitude, climate, land forms (or topog-
raphy), and soils determine what grasses
grow in certain places. Montana is a big
state, with a climate that ranges from
North Pacific to desert-like, with soils of
many kinds, and altitudes from 1,800 feet
to over 12,000 feet. You might expect,
then, that a wide variety of native grasses
grow here.

In the following section the state's
grasslands are divided into ten general
areas, by geographical location, elevation,
and by the soil type most prevalent. There
are many variations within these areas,
but these are some of the principal
grasslands.

Pacific Bluegrass

Beginning in the mountains of northwest
Montana, a few high altitude grasses, such as elk
sedge, grow £dong the steep western slopes in forests
of Douglas fir and western larch. Montana's state
grass, bluebunch wheatgrass*, grows in ponderosa
forests here and throughout the state. Shrubs and
broadleafed forbs survive best in the sandy loam of
these high areas, which are good summer range
for deer and elk. Bears are fond of the huckleberries
that grow here.

Bluebunch Wheatgrass

In the mountain valleys the soil is deeper and more
fertile than that on the surrounding hillsides. The
grasses most common there are needlegrass,
meadow grasses, Canada and Sandberg and Pacific
bluegrasses*, prairie Junegrass, and rough fescue.

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Growing on the foothills throughout the western
part of the state, Idaho fescue, bluebunch wheat-
grass, Junegrass, and Indian ricegrass*, are mixed
with several species of sagebrush. The soils in these
places are mostly sandy; along the streams they are
mixed with dark, rich soils deposited by water.

Timberline Bluegrass

Indian Ricegrass

On the towering Beartooth-Absaroka plateau
north of Yellowstone Park, alpine grasses are the
chief vegetation on the shallow, rocky soils. Alpine
timothy and timberline bluegrass*, and Ross bent
grass, together with forbs such as lupine and
paintbrush, are able to thrive in spite of the short
growing season at these high altitudes.

The rolling landscape of Montana's central plains
is interrupted by several widely separated small
mountain ranges where lodgepole pine, Engelmann
spruce, and Douglas fir predominate. In these
forests, at altitudes of from 5,000 to 8,000 feet, elk
sedge, pine reedgrass, and Idaho fescue* grow in the
soils that range from sandy loams to heavy clays.

Idaho Fescue

The western glaciated plains (that is, those once
covered by glaciers), have richer soils than those
farther south. Most of the land is planted to wheat,
so there are few native grasses in these north central
areas. Among them are blue grama, western wheat-
grass, and threadleaf and needleleaf sedges. The
sweetgrass* that grows on Montana's central plains
was used by Indians as a ceremonial incense.

The eastern glaciated plains extend from near
Havre to the Montana-North Dakota border, with a
southern boundary that roughly follows the Mis-
souri River. The dark grayish brown soils of these
wide valleys, foothills, and benchlands have fescues,
wheatgrasses, neeedle-and-thread, and bromes*.
Shrubs growing here are serviceberry, western
chokecherry, buffaloberry, and rose.

Smooth Brome

Sandberg Bluegrass

In a wide area extending on either side of the Mis-
souri River, known as the Missouri Breaks, the vege-
tation suits the rugged terrain. Scrub pine, juniper,
and some Ponderosa pine cling to the heavy clay
soils of the steep, dry cliffs and gorges. Bluebunch
wheatgrass, blue grama, Sandberg bluegrass*, and
plains muhly grow here, along with rabbitbrush,
sagebrush, yucca, and pricklypear.

Plains Muhly

The western sedimentary plains curve in a wide
reverse "S" from the Missouri River to Montana's
southern border. Vegetation in these benchlands and
wide valleys is composed of fescues, bluebunch and
western wheatgrasses, blue grama, plains muhly*,
and shrubs of the foothills type. Sagebrush domi-
nates in some parts of this region. Saltbush, prickly-
pear, phlox, and wildbuckwheat occur in smaller
amounts.

j Buffalograss

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Montana's eastern sedimentary plains are marked
by scattered stands of Ponderosa pine on the dry up-
per elevations. Grasses here are the wheatgrasses,
fescues, sideoats grama, Indian ricegrass, and Sand-
berg bluegrass. In sandy places, big and little blue-
stem are the principal grasses. Forbs are plantain,
wild onion, and biscuitroot; shrubs are snowberry.
pricklypear, and skunkbush sumac. The only re-
maining pure stand of buffalograss* grows in the
southeastern corner of the state. It was once one of
the most abundant grasses on the western plains.

The Climax Community

Plants that have adapted themselves to
their environment and formed a stable
community, one that remains about the
same, year after year, belong to a climax
community. Unless something happens to
change it, it continues to maintain the
same kinds of plants and make the best use
of the prevailing climate and soil condi-
tions. The more varied a plant community
is, the more protection it has against ex-
treme heat, drought, or overuse.

Decreasers, Increasers,

and Invaders

In any plant community there will be
plants of three classifications— de-
creasers, increasers, and invaders. De-
creasers are most abundant in a climax
community. They are the ones that grazing
animals prefer, and they also have more of
the food elements that these animals need.
They do, however, decrease in number with
heavy grazing— that's why they are called
decreasers (figure 1).

1. Decreasers

Canada Wild Rye

Green Needlegrass

Sideoats Grama

Empty space is rare in nature, so when
more useful plants (the decreasers) are re-
moved from the plant community, others
come in that are better adapted to constant
grazing and trampling. These are called in-
creasers {figure 2) — they increase to fill the
spaces left when the decreasers are forced
out.

Increasers are a natural part of the cli-
max vegetation, and may grow in about
equal numbers with the decreasers. How-
ever, they are usually less appetizing to
grazing animals. This gives them added
protection against heavy use. But like
most plants, increasers can be weakened
by continued close grazing.

2. Increasers

Nebraska Sedge

Blue Grama

Needle-and-Thread

6

3. Invaders— Annual Weeds

Canada Thistle

Curly Cup Gumweed

If continued heavy use also forces the in-
creasers out of a plant community, invader
plants will come in to fill their place. In-
vaders may not be present at all in the cli-
max community, or if present they make
up less than 2 1/2 percent of the total com-
munity. Invaders are usually not palatable
to animals and some in fact may be poison-

Salsify

ous, or have thorns or stickers. In Montana
some of these low quality grasses are salt-
grass, little bluestem, and wild rye. Annual
weeds, such as spotted knapweed, baby's
breath, salsify, bindweed, curly cup gum-
weed, lambsquarter, and Canada thistle of-
ten invade grasslands that have been
overgrazed or disturbed (figure 3).

More About Grasses

Native grasses, unique in their adaptabil-
ity to Montana growing conditions, have
developed traits to ensure their survival.
Their roots, many reaching depths of six
feet or more, are capable of drawing mois-
ture from any level. Many of these grasses
complete their growing cycle in early sum-
mer when temperatures are cool and mois-
ture is plentiful. They may become
dormant during the dry months; some re-
sume growth in the fall. Large amounts of
nutrients are stored in the root system to
be used in times of stress to rebuild the
plant. These stored nutrients may help a
plant to survive short periods of overgraz-
ing or drought.

Range plants and grasses give back to
the soil as much as two-thirds of their
growth. Dead stems and leaves form a
layer of litter that gradually breaks down
into humus, a dark material made of decay-
ing plants and animals. The minerals and
other nutrients in this humus return to the
soil. Humus also protects the ground sur-
face from extreme heat, breaks the force of
wind or falling rain, and helps the earth re-
tain moisture.

Other plants that are a part of the
Montana grassland provide food and habi-
tat for wildlife; however, domestic stock
usually avoid them unless nothing else is
available.

None of these weeds and annual grasses
is very nutritious for livestock, and some,
like downy chess (military grass), can
harm animals if the sharp seeds lodge in
their throats or under their skins. All are
"indicators" of an overused or poorly
managed range. When ranchers or range
specialists notice that these plants are on
the increase in rangeland or pastures, they
know they must act not only to curb their
spread, but also to provide better condi-
tions for the productive range grasses.

Woody shrubs such as sagebrush, rabbit
brush, big sage, greasewood, saltbush,
snowberry, willows, and wild rose provide
forage and shelter for wild browsing ani-
mals and other wildlife (figure 4). Many of
these shrubs do, however, invade
grasslands that have been overgrazed,
and, like annual weeds, are "indicators" of
poor range condition.

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4. Moose Browsing

Monl.iii.i llrpiirtincnl ii( Fish Wildlife, and Parks

Grasslands as Grazing Land

Grasslands as Watersheds

Most grasslands in Montana are used for
grazing domestic animals, either on pri-
vately owned lands, or on land that is
leased from the federal government. About
7 million acres of the state's grassland is
woodland that can be grazed.

Cattle, like the bison before them, prefer
the high-protein native grasses. In order to
conserve these plants, ranchers have
learned to "take half, leave half." Most use
a system of rest-rotation — that is, they
move their stock from one part of the range
to another to avoid overgrazing. If salt and
water are provided, cattle or sheep can be
kept in a desired area. Sheep may be tended
by a herder, who moves them to different
grazing areas. Such rotation of pasture
imitates the natural migration patterns of
the wild grazing animals that used to move
across the prairie. Other methods of keep-
ing range healthy or restoring it to its orig-
inal vigor include reseeding to native
grasses and weed spraying.

In Montana the most important contribu-
tion that grasslands make besides grazing
is that they store moisture. You might not
think of abundant water when you look at a
dry, brown stretch of prairie in midsum-
mer. But grassland plays a vital part in
holding water in the soil. This is because
soil with a thick matt of grass and roots
absorbs as much as 8 or 9 times more wa-
ter than ground without such protection.

Grasslands are like shields that protect
the earth. They keep heavy rainshowers
from washing away topsoil, and wind from
blowing it away; grass cools the earth, and
breaks down into the humus that nour-
ishes its own growth. In the grassy
foothills and mountains of Montana, this
ground cover helps to hold the snowpack
that builds up during the cold months. In
the spring, when the snow starts to melt,
the root systems of many different kinds of
grass help to control runoff.

Recreation

Forested Grassland

Roughly 7 million acres of Montana's
grassland is woodland that can be grazed.
Another 18 million acres provides timber,
watersheds, and places for recreation. The
trees in Montana's forested grasslands
range in variety from western ponderosa,
Douglas fir, and redcedar on the Pacific
slope of the Rockies to scattered dryland
stands of ponderosa pine on the high
plains. These forests serve as wildlife habi-
tat, as sources of timber, and, in the west-
ern part of the state, as important
watersheds* that hold and conserve the
snowpack of the cold months.

Recreation on grasslands may include
fishing, hunting, photography, riding, hik-
ing, or camping. Many access areas pro-
vide places for people to enjoy these
outdoor activities. Among the grassland
areas, the National Bison Range near
Moiese in western Montana attracts many
visitors (figure 5). One of the largest
wildlife refuges in the world, the Charles
M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, along
the Missouri River in north-central
Montana, includes almost undisturbed
grasslands. These are two of six publicly
owned game preserves in the state that
include more than 120,000 acres of
grassland.

* A watershed is a whole region or
area of land that supplies water to a
lake or river. This water enters the
ground from rain or snow and re-
turns to the surface in springs,
marshy places, or in streamflow.

5. Bison on National Bison Range

Montana Department o( Commf rcc

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History of Montana's Grasslands
— What Happened to the Prairie?

Most of the scars are covered now by
stands of wheat or grasses that were
planted by farmers and ranchers, but in
the drought years from 1933 to 1940,
great stretches of Montana prairie re-
sembled a desert. Fences were almost
drifted under with light sandy soil. Aban-
doned houses and barns slumped into the
endless wind. What had been advertised as
the last frontier now had little grass, no
cattle, and few people left.

How could the rich, thick, prairie
grassland have disappeared so quickly?
Early day cattlemen and farmers evidently
gave little thought to the results when they^
put thousands of animals on what seemed
like limitless prairie. They had a few hard
lessons to learn before they began to
manage the land properly. One such lesson
came in the winter of 1886-87. During that
winter Montana artist Charlie Russell sent
a postcard to some eastern cattle investors
with a sketch of a starving steer. He wrote
on the card, "The Last of Ten Thousand, or
Waiting for a Chinook."

After buffalo hunters had cleared the
prairies in the years from 1872-74, invest-
ments in cattle were popular among east-
ern businessmen. English, Scotch, and

European noblemen who had hunted on
the western plains joined in the cattle rush.
The prairies were soon crowded with lean
Texas longhorns that had never seen snow.

That winter of 1886-87 turned out to be
the worst that anyone could remember.
Blizzard followed blizzard; ice coated the
drifts and the cattle couldn't dig through to
grass. Hundreds of thousands of cattle, in
poor condition after long trail drives, died.
Fortunes were lost, and men began to real-
ize that cattle couldn't survive on the open
range without winter feed. For the first
time, western stockmen fenced pastures
and fed their animals; the rancher became
a farmer, too. He put some of his land into
hay production and kept his animals close
to the home ranch so they could be fed
during the cold months. That was the be-
ginning of the stock-raising business as we
know it now in Montana.

Although one lesson had been learned,
more followed. Sheep had been in Montana
since 1857, but their numbers reached
100,000 by 1880. They survived the
"Hard Winter" far better than cattle did.
By 1890, 1 1/2 million sheep grazed the
high plains and mountain valleys of
Montana (figure 6). Before the national
forests were established, overgrazing dam-
aged many of those areas that couldn't
withstand heavy use.

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6. Sheepherder with Flock

Montana Historical Society

11

Then came the homesteaders with mold-
board plows that could turn the deep
prairie sod. There were a few good years
when enough rain fell to produce adequate
crops. But then drought, a natural recur-
rence in the prairie climate, came— and
stayed. Without the deep-rooted grasses to
hold it, the soil dried and blew in dust
storms that covered the plains. Crops
failed, and most of the homesteaders,
broke and disillusioned, moved on. The
land they left behind was severely dam-
aged.

Repairing the Damage

In the years that followed, national con-
cern focused on rebuilding the soils of the
Great Plains, where most of the country's
grain had been grown. In 1930 the U.S.
Congress passed the Buchanan Amend-
ment to the Agriculture Appropriation Bill.
This amendment provided funds to create
the Soil Erosion Service, which in 1935 be-
came known as the Soil Conservation Serv-
ice. Its duty was twofold: (1) to find ways of
improving and conserving our soil, water,
and other natural resources, and (2) to
demonstrate and teach conservation prac-
tices.

In 1937 President Franklin D. Roosevelt
asked the nation's governors to support
laws permitting landowners to form con-
servation districts. Their purpose was to
work through local people to conserve and
improve our natural resources. In 1939

Montana passed a law to form conserva-
tion districts that would be a part of state
government.

Meanwhile, rangeland and grass spe-
cialists were searching for grasses and
other plants that could teike root in the des-
ert-like conditions left by the great dust
storms that had stripped the land of pre-
cious topsoil. From Russia they brought
the seeds of crested wheatgrass, a native of
the cold, windswept steppes near the arctic
circle. Bromegrass, an import from
Hungary, did well on the high dry plains of
this country. From the wheatlands of cen-
tral Canada came ideas for new ways of
planting grain and the use of shelterbelts
and strip farming to fight the wind.

Because damage to rangelands has long
been a problem in Montana, the state legis-
lature has passed several laws to improve
our grasslands. Among these laws are the
Montana Grazing District Law of 1933,
and the only rangeland management law in
the United States, the Coordinated
Management Act. The Rangeland Resource
Program established in 1970 works to im-
prove Montana's rangelands through
county range leaders who are local
ranchers.

Erosion from wind will always be a prob-
lem in Montana; in 1980 and 1981,
drought and high winds gave us the second
highest erosion rate in the United States
(figure 7).

7. Wind Erosion in Eastern
Montana, 1981

U.S. Soil Conservation Service

12

Relict Areas

Grassland Inhabitants

Throughout Montana there are many
areas where the grasses grow just as they
did before domestic grazing began. These
relict areas, identified and maintained
through the Soil Conservation Service, are
located on ranches, in pioneer cemetaries,
(figure 8), and in isolated areas. On all of
these sites more tall grasses grow, with
smaller numbers of short grasses, broad-
leafed forbs, and woody shrubs.

One of these relict areas, near Ekalaka,
contains about 400 acres and is on top of a
butte that large grazing animals can't
reach. Others are on the old Custer and
Reno-Benteen battlefields southeast of
Hardin. Another is a railroad right-of-way
near Whitehall that has not been grazed
since 1912. These plots provide ranchers
with comparisons for grazing lands in their
areas, so they can maintain similar mixes
of native grasses.

Montana's grasslands are home to many
wild things. The most commonly seen big
game are mule deer and pronghorn ante-
lope (figure 9), but hundreds of other crea-
tures burrow beneath the grass or nest in
it, or fly above it looking for food. Among
the burrowing animals, the largest is the
badger. Smaller animals like ground squir-
rels, moles, voles, and prairie dogs also
burrow under the thick mat of roots and
grasses. Snakes often share quarters with
the larger underground inhabitants. Over-
head drift the hawks and buzzards, and on
the forest edges, eagles hunt from their
nests on cliffs and dead trees.

9. Antelope

Montana Department of Commerce

U.S. Soil Conservation Service

8. Relict Area— Helmville Cemetary

Sparrows, quail, grouse, bluebirds, and
thrushes keep to the sagebrush and grass
that join the arid fringes of ponderosa pine
and Douglas fir. In the mountain valleys,
where wild marsh grasses (or sedges) line
many of the waterways, muskrats,
skunks, and raccoons make their homes.
They pad their burrows with grass, and
prey on the crayfish, frogs, and water in-
sects that live in these grassy streams.
High on the talus slopes, the little gray
pica, or coney, the haymaker of the wild,
clips grass and spreads it on the rocks to
cure for his winter meals.

13

Suggested Class Projects

Further Reading

1. Ask area representatives of Bureau of
Land Management; Department of
Fish, Wildlife, and Parks; Soil Conser-
vation Service; and other government
agencies responsible for grassland
management to speak to the class.

Ask area ranchers to speak to the class
on their range management tech-
niques.

3. Collect area grasses, identify, and label
them. Discuss what they indicate about
the soil in which they were found.

4.

5.

Arrange for a group hike through an
area grassland or outdoor classroom.
Keep a list of plants and signs of ani-
mals seen during the hike.

Visit any of the 100 "relict" sites lo-
cated around the state where
grasslands are kept in the same condi-
tion they were before domestic live-
stock began grazing in the area. (Your
local soil conservation office can tell
you where one is located in your area.)

Climax Vegetation of Montana, Based
on Soils and Climate. 1976. USDA Soil
Conservation Service. Bozeman, MT.

Forest Habitat Types of Montana. May
1977. USDA Forest Service. Intermoun-
tain Forest and Range Experiment Station.
Technical Report INT-34. Ogden, UT.

Geologic Parent Materials of Montana
Soils. November 1980. Bulletin 721. USDA
Soil Conservation Service and Montana
Agricultural Experiment Station, Montana
State University. Bozeman, MT.

* Grass, the Everything, Everywhere
Plant. 1977. Goldin, Augusta R. Elsevier-
Nelson.

Grassland and Shrubland Habitat
Types of Western Montana. January 1980.
Mueggler, W.F., and W. L. Stewart. USDA
Forest Service. Intermountain Forest and
Range Experiment Station. General Tech-
nical Report INT-66. Ogden, UT.

Interagency Forage, Conservation and
Wildlife Handbook, n.d.

* Lands Beyond the Forest. 1969. Sears,
Paul B. Prentiss-Hall.

Manual of the Grasses of the United
States. Revised February 1951. Hitchcock,
A.S. USDA Miscellaneous Publication No.
200. Washington, DC.

Prairie Plants and Their Environment.
1968. Weaver, J.E. University of Nebraska
Press.

Soil and Vegetation Inventory of Near-
pristine Sites, Montana. July 1973. USDA
Soil Conservation Service. Bozeman, MT.

♦Student Reading.

Alpine Bluegrass

14

Junegrass

The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has had
many requests for information about the minerals, water, forests, and other
resources in Montana. This booklet is one of a series presented to answer
some of those questions and to stimulate an interest in the natural resources
of Montana. The University of Montana cooperated with DNRC in preparing
the series which was financed in part by a federal grant made under Title I of
the Higher Education Act of 1965.

15

Written and edited by: Peggy Todd
Layout: D.C. Howard
Production: Gordon Taylor
Data and Word Processing: George
Cawlfield, Jack Zanto, Margie Peterson
Technical review: Dr. Ray Ditterline,
Montana State University, College of Agri-
culture; Terry Wheeler, DNRC

mONTAMA OtfAltTmeilT W UATUHAL mfSOUHCCS A const RVATIOM

32 South Ewing
Helena, Montana 59620