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irregular flat mounds, 1—2 mètres in diameter and up to 
30 cm high. These are either cracked and covered with 
salt or moist and brown with a surface that is wetter than 
the ground beneath, but with no salt except on occasional 
protuberances, like tufts of grass. The cause of these emi- 
nences is unknown to me, perhaps it is the action of frost. 
In any case, the soil in them has apparently considerable 
capillarity and is able to retain salt water. These mounds 
are as a rule bare of plants. The salty part of Shatyr Tash 
is somewhat richer in vegelation than the gravelly part, but 
mostly the same plants grow in both soils: Poa, Calamagrostis, 
Potentilla polyschista, Elymus dasystachys, Alopecurus mucro- 
natus and Acantholimon diapensioides are the most important. 
In some spots the first three named form a thin carpet, and 
in others, Acantholimon usurps all the room there is. 
There are swamps too on Statyr Tash; there the soil 
was very moist but there were no puddles or pools, and 
practically no change in the vegetation. However in these 
localities Alopecurus mucronatus and the lovely red-flowering 
Pedicularis uliginosa grow. 
Mountain-slopes with a southern exposure were ex- 
tremely dry and there were great spaces between thé plants. 
Here we found Eurotia ceratoides, Artemisia and an unde- 
termined grass. On a slope exposed to the northeast and 
with a subsoil of clay, mixed with small stones, the vegefa- 
tion was richer and closer: Artemisia, Acantholimon diapen- 
sioides, Poa attenuata, Nepeta daënensis and kokanica, Erysimum 
sisymbrioides. Of these Nepeta daénensis and Erysimum are 
annuals. There were stripes and patches of green near the 
streams coming from melting snow. Here Bromus crinitus, 
Braya Kizil Arti, Ranunculus Aucheri and rufosepalus, a little 
annual Veronica, Primula sibirica, and Pottia latifolia were 
growing. The lowest great snow mass lay at an altitude of 
4,300 mètres. Just below it was the moss Eucalypta lepto- 
don, twenty métres further down the first phanerogams 
appeared, and another twenty mètres below them were 
flowering plants: Chorispora macropoda, Smelowskia calycina, 
Papaver radicatum, Poa attenuata, and Dracocephalum discolor, 
