RUSSIAN STEPPE 273 



colours of the steppe. Other salt bushes accompany the 

 wormwood, but often large tracts are left entirely 

 lifeless. The steppe extends on the west to the foot of 

 the Carpathians and stretches north to the forest-belt. 

 On the indented edge of it, the deciduous forests consist 

 almost entirely of oaks, with a rich scrubby undergrowth : 

 in many places, the hornbeam forms an irregular belt of 

 dense thickets crowded with thin, slender trees. 



Hungary. Like the Russian steppe, Hungary is 

 a region where the moderate rainfall, the dry and cold 

 winter, the dry and hot late summer, the strong winds, 

 and the prevalent dryness of the air are unfavourable to 

 tree growth. The climate of this broad depression is 

 one of extremes, owing to its central situation in 

 Europe, as well as to the circle of lofty mountain-ranges 

 which shut out most of the external modifying influences. 

 In mid-summer, the leaves of the trees and shrubs wither 

 in consequence of the great heat, drought, and consequent 

 evaporation ; the crops turn yellow prematurely, and 

 grass completely withers in the meadows. Hungary is 

 thus an outlier of the great steppe, whose climate, and 

 conditions of plant-life it largely shares, though in a less 

 accentuated form. On the margins of the rivers, the 

 usual river-woods, reed- and sedge-swamps and flood 

 meadows are found. The steppe, called here 'puszta', 

 and covered with waving feather-grass or close, tall tufts 

 of golden-beard grass, is, in places, dry enough to give 

 rise to sand-dunes often covered with low, dense, greyish- 

 green swards of dry grasses. Salt tracts are frequent, 

 especially in the eastern portion, and are distinguished, 

 according to local conditions, by salt meadows, i. e. dense, 

 low mats of perennial herbs, or by salt steppes showing 

 scattered tufts of blue-green waxy herbs or undershrubs. 

 In places, the appearance of these salt depressions, dotted 



1169.1 T 



