126 



This is a Hummock-desert. Earlier in the year there 

 were probably numerous spring plants, but they have dis- 

 appeared now. 



5. At the railway-station Chodsha Dawlet between Buchara 

 and Tshardshui. June 10. 1899. 



The boundary of the oasis lies a short distance to the 

 east of Chodsha Dawlet, but still far into the desert one sees 

 well-preserved ruins of houses apparently not very old. The 

 country has formerly been cultivated, but has been abandoned 

 on account of scarcity of water; it is uncertain whether this 

 is because the Serafshan river carries less water than formerly 

 or whether more water is now utilised in its upper course. 



The soil here at Chodsha Dawlet is loose, fine, slightly 

 drifting sand. The ground is flat, with some knolls or level 

 surfaces of loess the original soil; sometimes with small white 

 patches of powdery salt. In other places there are small 

 dunes barely a metre high. Near the railway is a small wood, 

 no doubt planted, of Saxaul, (Haloxylon Ammodendron). Here 

 it is a shrub rather more than 3 metres high, with several 

 stems, the outer ones bending obliquely outwards. Round 

 the foot of each bush there is a hillock of slightly cohesive 

 sand which partly owes its existence to the shelter of the 

 plant, partly perhaps to mice whose holes are not hard to 

 find in many of the hillocks. The average distance 



between the Saxaul bushes is about 3 4 metres. On the 

 level clay-flats, the bushes do not thrive well, they are sparser 

 and any present are half dead. On the contrary Lycium 

 ruthenicum is quite at home here, bushes of this species 

 attain a height of over a metre. They are even more dreary 

 looking than the Saxaul shrubs, dry, grey and stick -like. 

 Smirnowia tnrkestana occurs in a few places as low shrubs 

 together with the thick-leaved hemicryptophyte Zygophyllum 

 EichwaldiL In other places I found Salsola inermis a grey 

 herb, S. Kali and another grey annual Chenopodiacea with 

 fleshy, hairy leaves (Halimocnemis sp.?); also a few green 

 Alhagi Camelorum. These were the only plants found here, 

 and they occurred very scattered. 



Walking towards the north one soon arrives at the end 

 of the small wood. Here in the sand there were several 



