32 



ANTONOW travelled in these parts from April 18 th to June 

 27 th in 1889, so that, as he states, he has not seen the flower- 

 ing season of early spring, nor the late bloom of perennial 

 plants. 



ANTONOW has six formations: 



1. The flora of the Clay(or loess) Desert-plains. 



2. The flora of the Riverside Thickets. 



3. The Loess-steppe. 



4. The Sand-desert. 



5. The Promontory or Stone-steppe. 



6. The Mountain or Rock-flora. 



1. The formation of the Clay-Deserts is the most 

 prevalent and has the greatest extension of all. The soil has 

 a level surface and is formed by loess which is soft and 

 greasy in its crude form, and hard as stone when dry. When 

 very dry it cracks into 4 5-angled polygons and the s.urface 

 peels off. This soil may occur as the subsoil for other for- 

 mations. 



The flora is poor and monotonous, this formation being 

 the domain of the Chenopodiaceae. Saxaul (Haloxylon Am- 

 modendron) is the most important of these, it is here a low, 

 twisted bush, no higher than an Arshin (about 0,? metre); 

 Salsola, Suaeda and Halimocnemis are also mentioned. The 

 plants stand far apart from each other. Where the moisture- 

 conditions are more favourable, the plants are more abundant 

 and stronger, for instance near water-holes or saline places 

 or on the more retentive sands of the dunes. 



The saline places ("Takyr" and "Ssor") are mentioned 

 as a sub-formation, but no details are given by which they 

 can be differentiated. 



2. The Riverside Thickets. Along the rivers on the nar- 

 row strips of land which are continually moist, Tamarix, Poplars 

 (Populus euphratica, pruinosa), Willows, Lycium turcomanicum, 

 Phragmites, etc. grow, often accompanied by the creepers Cynan- 

 chum acutum and Apocynnm sibiricum (= A. venetum). They 

 form a thick and often impenetrable living fence along the 

 banks of the river, - a luxuriant vegetation, the poplars 



