leafless or leaf-bearing type, with the exception of Aeluropus, 
Statice, Phragmites and the salt-excreting Frankenias and Ta- 
marisks. Their internal structure is dealt with in chapter 13. 
Most of the species are annuals and all are summer- 
plants, none being ephemeral spring-plants. The annual Sta- 
tices (S. leptostachya and spicata) are probably not very long- 
lived, but on this point I have no definite observations. 
As regards the natural development of “Ssor”, I can 
only say that on one occasion I observed that sand from 
the neighbouring sand-desert had drifted across the salt-flats, 
and sheltering behind plants of Salicornia had formed mi- 
niature sand-dunes. If this sand remains long enough it 
will become permeated by the moisture coming from below, 
and the salt incrustation must form over it. In this way 
the surface may be raised a little. This process does not 
seem, however, to play any great part, because I have always 
found clay under the salt incrustation, but further examina- 
tion might perhaps reveal the presence of sand. 
That the barrenness of the salt-desert is due to the want 
of fresh water alone, was illustrated by a striking example 
seen near Buchara. Here in May 1898, two parallel ditches 
were dug through a snow-white salt-desert, and the excavated 
material was made into a mound between them, so that the 
mound and the double ditch surrounded a square piece of 
of ground. The inner ditch was connected by a long straight 
ditch with the irrigation system of some tilled fields in the 
neighbourhood. The piece of ground enclosed by the mound 
and the ditches was perfectly green, Aeluropus littoralis having 
spread so luxuriantly that it almost formed a carpet of 
vegetation and so dense that it almost suppressed all the 
other halophytes, only a very few Halostachys being left. 
Outside the outer ditch the ground was white with salt 
and covered with scattered Halostachys caspica and Aeluropus 
(fig. 3). 
The peasants told me that the enclosed piece of ground 
was made into a field this year, that it had only once been 
irrigated (through the long straight ditch) and that in the 
autumn they intended to sow it with wheat. MIDDENDORFF, 
