DISTRIBUTION AND OCCURRENCE
SPECIES: Cercocarpus montanus | True Mountain-Mahogany 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION : 
The central distribution of true mountain-mahogany is located on the
west side of the Rocky Mountains in the foothills and mountains of Utah,
Colorado, and Wyoming.  The range of true mountain-mahogany also extends
north into Montana, east into South Dakota and Nebraska, south from
Oklahoma into Mexico, and west into Arizona and Nevada [15,66].  True
mountain-mahogany occasionally occurs in Idaho [48] and southwestern
Oregon [43].


ECOSYSTEMS : 
   FRES20  Douglas-fir
   FRES21  Ponderosa pine
   FRES23  Fir-spruce
   FRES29  Sagebrush
   FRES34  Chaparral-mountain shrub
   FRES35  Pinyon-juniper
   FRES38  Plains grasslands


STATES : 
     AZ  CO  ID  MT  NE  NV  NM  OK  OR  SD
     TX  UT  WY  MEXICO


ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS : 
     AGFO  ARCH  BAND  BIBE  BLCA  BRCA
     CACH  CACA  CANY  CARE  CHCU  CHIR
     COLM  CORO  CURE  DINO  ELMA  FLFO
     FOBU  GLCA  GRCA  GRSA  GUMO  HOVE
     JECA  LAME  LAMR  LABE  MEVE  NABR
     PECO  ROMO  SCBL  TICA  WACA  WICA
     ZION


BLM PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS : 
    1  Northern Pacific Border
    5  Columbia Plateau
    6  Upper Basin and Range
    7  Lower Basin and Range
    8  Northern Rocky Mountains
    9  Middle Rocky Mountains
   10  Wyoming Basin
   11  Southern Rocky Mountains
   12  Colorado Plateau
   13  Rocky Mountain Piedmont
   15  Black Hills Uplift
   16  Upper Missouri Basin and Broken Lands


KUCHLER PLANT ASSOCIATIONS : 
   K011  Western ponderosa forest
   K012  Douglas-fir forest
   K015  Western spruce-fir forest
   K016  Eastern ponderosa forest
   K017  Black Hills pine forest
   K018  Pine-Douglas-fir forest
   K019  Arizona pine forest 
   K020  Spruce-fir-Douglas-fir forest
   K021  Southwestern spruce-fir forest
   K022  Great Basin pine forest
   K023  Juniper-pinyon woodland
   K031  Oak-juniper woodlands
   K037  Mountain-mahogany-oak scrub
   K038  Great Basin sagebrush
   K055  Sagebrush steppe
   K056  Wheatgrass-needlegrass shrubsteppe
   K064  Grama-needlegrass-wheatgrass


SAF COVER TYPES : 
   206  Engelmann spruce-subalpine fir
   210  Interior Douglas-fir
   219  Limber pine
   220  Rocky Mountain juniper
   237  Interior ponderosa pine
   239  Pinyon-juniper
   240  Arizona cypress
   241  Western live oak


SRM (RANGELAND) COVER TYPES : 
   210  Bitterbrush
   322  Curlleaf mountain-mahogany-bluebunch wheatgrass
   412  Juniper-pinyon woodland
   413  Gambel oak
   415  Curlleaf mountain-mahogany
   416  True mountain-mahogany
   417  Littleleaf mountain-mahogany
   418  Bigtooth maple
   419  Bittercherry
   420  Snowbrush
   421  Chokecherry-serviceberry-rose
   503  Arizona chaparral
   504  Juniper-pinyon pine woodland
   509  Transition between oak-juniper woodland and mahogany-oak association
   733  Juniper-oak
   735  Sideoats grama-sumac-juniper


HABITAT TYPES AND PLANT COMMUNITIES : 
True mountain-mahogany commonly occurs as a dominant shrub or small tree
in almost-pure stands, as a codominant in mountain shrub communities,
and as an understory species in pinyon (Pinus spp.)-juniper (Juniperus
spp.) communities.

Where true mountain-mahogany forms a canopy layer, it is associated with
grassy species [10].  In Utah, true mountain-mahogany stands supported a
total plant cover of 12.8 percent [66].  In the Black Hills true
mountain-mahogany grows in dense stands [53].  

The mountain shrub community usually exhibits a mosaic pattern of
several codominant shrub species distributed across a heterogeneous
landscape.  In such communities true mountain-mahogany is commonly
associated with other mountain-mahogany (Cercocarpus spp.), scrub oak
(Quercus spp.), bigtooth maple (Acer grandidentatum), antelope
bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata), Stansbury cliffrose (Purshia mexicana
var. stansburiana), mountain big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp.
vaseyana), pachistima (Pachistima myrsinities), ninebark (Physocarpus
malvaceus), ceanothus (Ceanothus spp.), serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.),
chokecherry (Prunus virginiana), bitter cherry (P. emarginata), and
snowberry (Symphoricarpos spp.) [33].

The pinyon-juniper community is a tree/annual forb community type with
relatively low cover value but high species diversity [10,14].
Pinyon-juniper sites in Utah supported a total plant cover of 26.8
percent.  The relative frequency of true mountain-mahogany on these
sites was 0.8 percent [66].

True mountain-mahogany occurs as an understory species in Gambel oak
(Quercus gambelii) stands and Arizona chaparral [7,8,46].  In
southwestern Oregon, true mountain-mahogany is codominant with Oregon
white oak (Quercus garryana) [43].  In the Wasatch Mountains of Utah and
Idaho, true mountain-mahogany codominates with antelope bitterbrush
[42].

Publications listing true mountain-mahogany as a dominant or codominant
species include:

  Classification of the forest vegetation of Colorado by habitat type
    and community type [1]
  Arizona chaparral: plant associations and ecology [11]
  A vegetation classification system for New Mexico, U.S.A. [18]
  Forest vegetation of the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests in
    central Colorado: a habitat type classification [22]
  Forest vegetation of the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota
    and Wyoming: a habitat type classification [23]
  Woodland communities and soils of Fort Bayard, southwestern New Mexico
    [30]
  Vegetation and flora of Fort Bowie National Historic Site, Arizona
    [54]

Related categories for Species: Cercocarpus montanus | True Mountain-Mahogany