Remarks on the most Important Plant-Societies of tlie Island. 



267 



C. cyprius 



C. pentapetaloides 



C. siculus 



C. coelesyriacus 



Onosma caespitosum 



Ajuga chia subsp. tridacti/Utes 



Ballota integrifoUa 



Sideritis cypria 



S. romana subsp. curvidens 



Phlomis cypria 



Zizyphora capitata 



Satureia graeca subsp. cypria 



S. exigua var. integrifoUa 



Hijnscijamus aureus 



Celsia Arcturus 



Linaria ruhrifolia 



Antirrhinum majus var. angxi sti folium 



Putoria calabrica 



Galium suherosum 



G. canum 



G. tenuisfiimum 



G. setaceum 



G. murale 



Vaillaniia hispida 



Bryonia cretica 



Campanula Eriinis 



Specularia falcata 



Phagnalon graecnm 



Helichrysum rupicolum subsp. hrucliyphyUuvi 



Anthemis tricolor 



Achillea cretica 



Cirsium Chamaepeuce subsp. camptolepis 



Lactuea viminea 



L. hispida subsp. CandoUeana 



3. Steppe-Societies. 



A considerable part of the surface of the island is occupied by plant-societies, which must be 

 chaiacterized as steppe-societies. Especially this applies to the low-lands, and above all to the eastern 

 part of the island. As for the whole of Messaria we may thus say. that by far the greatest part of the 

 uncultivated country consists of steppes. 



I have mentioned above (Page .3) the low. square hills, "The Kavkalla"s, which are so characteristic 

 of the lower parts of Cyprus. The surface of them, consisting- of a hard, conglomerate-crust, as a rule 

 only scantily covered by ferrugineous soil of little nutritive value, is generally occupied by steppe-societies. 

 In places, however, where the soil is somewhat deeper, the farmers have cultivated parts of this rather 

 discouraging land, and made use of them for agriculture. 



Plant-societies, which must be characterized as "steppes", at any rate when taking this term in 

 a wider sense, also grow in extensive tracts of sloping land, on earthy hills and mountain-sides, where 

 the soil is too dry or too shallow for the thriving of other woody plants than low dwarf-shrubs, scarcely 

 one foot high 



"Trachiotis". O: dry land, is the name by which the inhabitants of the island indicate the steppes. 

 This name particularly seems to be applied to the tracts which are chiefly characterized by Simguisorha 

 spinosa and othei' low dwarfy shrubs. 



Among the different steppe-societies of Cyprus only a few of the most important ones will be 

 mentioned below. 



a. Grass-Steppes. The species of grass most characteristic of the grass-steppes is the little annual 

 Stipa tortilis. In company with this and also extremely numerous grow Tritieum oratnm (in several 

 vaiieties). Arena harhata subsp. Wiest'i'i, Hordeum murinum, Lagurns ovatus, two or three species of Briza, 

 among which B. maxima must particularly be mentioned, the little threadfiue Psilurus uristatus, and 

 others. All these are annual species of distinctly xerophile building. The single individuals grow rather 

 remotely from each other, the distances being so great, that the surface of the ground is not covered as 

 in our North-European meadows. Between the grasses grow numerous small herbs, for instance various 

 species of Medicago, TrifoUum and other Leguminosae, Lagoecia cuminoides, different species of 

 Plafitago and Valerianella, etc. Among the perennial plants of the grass-steppes may be mentioned the 



