My first month with the BLM in Missoula, Montana has flown by! I have learned so much in the last month, and have seen some beautiful parts of Montana. The primary task that we have been working on is inventorying a sensitive plant species Keeled Bladderpod (Physaria carinata). This sensitive plant only occurs on very steep, south facing slopes so I have been getting a very good workout as well as finding the Bladderpod! One of our other main tasks is vegetation monitoring. We have mostly worked on pace transects and in a few weeks we will be doing Daubenmire transects. I have always thought that grasses are some of the hardest plants to identify and have wanted to be able to look at a grass and be able to identify it. Well I am almost there! I can identify most of the native grasses in this region. My co-workers have really been patient with me and have shown me some of the main characteristics to look for. We also had the opportunity to take a workshop on native grasses which helped as well.

Last week I had the opportunity to plant Aspen trees at Garnet Ghost Town, an old mining town northeast of Missoula. The BLM had done a thinning project in the past few years to protect against fire damage to the ghost town. They recently created an interpretative trail where the the thinning project had been, and wanted to populate the area with native trees. The seeds were collected a year ago and were sent to a local nursery to grow! A thousand trees were planted that day, and we have more to plant in the following weeks.  I am looking forward to seeing what it will look like in a few years.

Bitteroot in bloom

I also had the opportunity to go back to a few areas where we found Bitteroot, Montana’s state flower in bloom! They are such small flowers you really have to seek them out. Once they bloom they loose their fleshy leaves and only the flower is present. We also found more Camas in bloom, a culturally important plant in this area. On our way to this area we were lucky enough to see a black bear cub and a great gray owl.

Camas

This experienced has already enriched my knowledge and life, who knows what the next months will bring!