60 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



The strange salt steppes, which in summer often glitter 

 as if covered with new-fallen snow, from the salt which lies 

 on their surface, possess three plants which are considered 

 peculiar to them, Anabasis, Halocnew.on, and Brachylepis, 

 all of them elegantly-shaped little plants, with clusters of 

 very small blossoms, but with a look of poverty about them 

 which plainly speaks of the soil on which they grow. The 

 plants which prefer this kind of soil, and which we may 

 therefore expect to find in company with those last men- 

 tioned, are common Wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium), 

 Eleabane (Inula Britannica], Bird's-foot Trefoil (Lotus 

 corniculatus) , Thrift (Statice Tatarica), a kind of Saltwort 

 (Salsola prostrata), some species of the Liquorice plant 

 (Glycirrhiza) , and, besides many other little plants, that ele- 

 gant shrub the Tamarisk (Tamarix Gattica). 



Further on and on we might still wander, if we had cou- 

 rage, over the Tartarian steppes; but that word "desola- 

 tion" is so connected with them in our thoughts, that our 

 hearts are chilled when we think of encountering them; 

 and we shrink from an undertaking which might expose us, 

 houseless and defenceless (if by chance the winter overtook 

 us there), to the terrors of a steppe storm ; during which 

 " the clouds hang dense and gloomy over the barren waste, 



