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r .. • • <br />uncommon. The proposed post-mining land use may be greatly enhanced by the <br />use of species not native to the area or native species that may be uncommon <br />due to prior management practices. Use of similarity at the growth-form <br />level helps to ensure optimum utilization of environmental resources and that <br />the resultant plant community will- not differ greatly between reference and <br />reclaimed areas. <br />The growth-forms listed in Table 1 are comparable to the species found <br />in the submontane and montane zones in western Colorado. The growth-form <br />categories can be made more or less specific as determined by the regulatory <br />agency and the applicant. The growth-forms presented here make it possible <br />to identify problems such as weed invasion (Annual Forb and Annual Grass). <br />They take into consideration whether the grasses are native or introduced (an <br />important consideration since much of reclamation planting is to grasses) and <br />make allowance for use of different shrub and tree species. <br />Hypothetical Cases Using the Motyka Index <br />The following cases are hypothetical situations developed to show how the <br />Motyka index reflects changes in the relationship between reclaimed and <br />reference areas. "Component" in these examples is a generic term that can <br />mean either species or growth-form. <br />Cases 1 and 2 are hypothetical examples of situations where a reclaimed <br />and reference area have everything or nothing in common, respectively. This <br />results in a similarity index of 100°~ for Case 1 and 0~ for Case 2. <br />Case 3 is an example of a situation where all of the components of <br />the reclaimed area are also found in the reference area but the quantitative <br />values differ greatly. The result is a relatively low similarity index of 37%. <br />