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4-45 <br />drainage basin. The most common soil type for the vegetation <br />• type is the Billings clay loam, a deep to very deep and well- <br />drained soil. <br />Cover <br />-Total vegetation cover in the Shadscale vegetation type averages <br />-41.5 percent. Soil and litter cover are both high at 28.2 and <br />26.0 percent, respectively. Rock cover is low, 4.3 percent. <br />Absolute cover by life form is as follows: shrubs and subshrubs, <br />14.8 percent; perennial grasses, 1.5 percent; annual grasses, <br />23.7 percent; perennial forbs, 0.3 percent; and annual forbs, <br />1.2 percent. See Table 4.5-95. <br />The shrub and subshrub cover includes a variety of species. <br />Shadscale saltbush is dominant with 8.2 percent cover. Broom <br />snakeweed and cottonthorn horsebrush Tetraaymia spinosa are <br />also common with 3.5 and 1.9 percent cover, respectively. Other <br />shrubs in this vegetation type are big sagebrush, Gardner salt- <br />. bush, rubber rabbitbrush, low rabbitbrush, common winterfat <br />Krascheninnikovia Janata, and greasewood. <br />Vegetation cover is dominated by cheatgrass brome. This annual <br />introduced grass accounts for more than half (23.7 percent) of <br />the total cover. Perennial grasses provide only 1.5 percent <br />cover, and include Salina wildrye, galleta Ailaria Jamesii, <br />Indian ricegrass Oryzopsis hymenoides, squirreltail, sand <br />dropseed, and Sandberg bluegrass. <br />Perennial forb cover is also extremely low, averaging 0.3 percent, <br />contributed by gumweed aster Machaeranthera grindeZioides. <br />Other perennial forb species occurring in the vegetation type <br />include thistle cirsium sp. and desert princesplume stanleya <br />pinnata. Annual forb cover is low (1.2 percent), consisting <br />of common blue-mustard Chorispora tenella, Russian thistle, and <br />tumble-mustard Sisymbrium altissimum. <br />• <br />