the mounds. These depressions naturally enough have a 
finer, more clayey bottom than the surrounding plain. This 
bottom is often cracked by drought, and sometimes a little 
salt may be found crystallized out. Most of the plant species, 
characteristic of the plain, shun these depressions, — however 
the following are to be found there: Acantholimon diapensi- 
oides, whose cushions are here often looser and more rounded 
than on sandy soil, Solenanthus stylosus and Hedysarum 
cephalotes of which there were many low, weakly developed 
specimens with small, scanty flowers. These species are 
found just as frequently between the depressions, as in them. 
On the other hand Carex stenophylla prefers the depressions, 
and Arenaria Meyeri (and the annual, Halogeton glomeratus, 
which was only found a single time), grows there exclusively. 
The case of Arenaria was very striking. It made a strong 
impression of not belonging to the Trigonella-formation, but 
of being fragments forced in from another plant-community. 
This other plant-community was found later, south of Jashil 
Kul, — the Arenaria-Meyeri-formation, covering the 
rather moist northern slopes of the mountains. The Arenaria- 
Meyeri depressions near Jashil Kul are, then, the forced in 
fragments of this. The vegetation of the plain cannot then 
then be rightly considered a single association of the Tri- 
gonella-formation, but as a “Complex of associations” (Du RIETZ, 
Fries und TENGWALL). 
The following may be said in regard to the importance 
of exposure for the vegetation of the Pamirs. On a gently 
sloping plain east of a low line of hills, and again east of 
Bulung Kul, I found Cousinia rava dominating, a beautiful 
luxuriant growth, and of other species: Stipa orientalis, Chrys- 
anthemum pamiricum, Trigonella Emodi, Hedysarum cepha- 
lotes and Linaria sp. The latter were scarce. There was far 
more soil than plants to be seen. 
Where this vegetation is to be found, the plain slopes 
toward E.S.E. Further south the declivity becomes sharper, 
and the exposure by degrees N.E. At the turning point, 
where the exposure changes from south to north, Cousinia, 
Chrysanthemum and their accompanying plants disappear 
almost wholly, and a new association of Acantholimon diapensi- 
