CHARACTER OF COUNTRY 85 



noticeable vegetation consists of deciduous trees and bushes such as poplars, elms, 

 willows and ash trees, amongst which appear wild roses, raspberry-bushes, 

 hawthorns, and a kind of honeysuckle. In the less watered parts tamarisk, 

 wormwood, and liliaceous plants such as garlic and tulips, are everywhere found. 

 The characteristic plant, however, is the saxaul (Anatasis ammodendron), a thick- 

 stemmed tree of about 20 feet in height, with a hard, heavy wood, and a sappy 

 bark apparently serving as a water-reservoir. In May this tree, which occasionally 

 forms small forests, has little yellow blossoms, and in September pear-shaped, 

 fleshy fruits. Also prominent and widely distributed is a hardy woolly reed 

 (Lasiogrostis splendens), nearly 7 feet in height, which grows principally on 

 saline soils, and forms large thickets in favourable places. Common, although less 

 characteristic, is a juicy and thorny shrub (Nitraria schoberi) with small leaves, 

 which grows best on saline and clay soils, attaining a height of about 12 inches, 

 and affording in its berries a favourite food to many animals. 



Most of the plants have small or no leaves, and are protected from drought in 

 much the same way as the desert plants of northern Africa and south-western 

 Asia. Their growth depends partly on the spring rains; but while the plants 

 nourished by underground moisture bear leaves during the whole or the greater 

 part of the summer, those dependent on these rains appear for a few weeks only. 



The western districts, traversed by the lower Volga, differ in the character 

 of the landscape from those farther east, the vegetation consisting of dwarf 

 plants widely scattered over large spaces of bare ground, and remarkable for the 

 predominance of greyish green, hairy herbs rich in aromatic oils. In spring there 

 appear tender and juicy plants, such as lilies and their allies, and early grasses, 

 especially Poa bidbosa. These are replaced by a yarrow {Achillea gerberi) and a 

 number of grasses with hard, curly leaves. As heat and dryness increase, there 

 follow a number of spiny plants, the spines of which replace the tender leaves of 

 spring. At the end of summer aromatic plants and saline herbs predominate, 

 the roots of these going deep enough to derive sufficient moisture, while their 

 neighbours perish through drought. 



Between the Caspian and the Sea of Aral is the Trans-Caspian region. Bare 

 mountains, rivers without estuaries and in summer without water, barren salt- 

 plains, unlimited sand, and innumerable sand-hills, partly bare and partly 

 covered with low bushes, form the Trans-Caspian landscape. To complete the 

 picture it should be added that the air is laden with dust and the sky cloudless. 

 In the north-eastern part of the Caspian area lies the monotonous Kirghiz steppe, 

 where thorny desert plants struggle with inclement nature. Wherever the ground is 

 damp the woolly reeds grow in tall, impenetrable thickets, and everywhere the 

 sand is clothed with the ragged saxaul, whose long, hard roots form the fuel of the 

 Kirghiz nomads, by whom it is piled in pyramids near their tent-villages or 

 carried away in the caravans. Here and there the steppe is traversed b} T water- 

 courses, dry during the greater part of the year, which feed small salt lakes, on 

 the shores of which innumerable flocks of birds of passage stop to rest in spring 

 and autumn. 



To the south-eastward of the Kirghiz steppe lies the Turkestan desert, where 

 the growth of plants becomes poorer on the barren soil of the ancient bed of the 



