ON THE PLORA OF MOAB. i 295 
above the stream. On the east it still obtains at the Wady Drah, 
Kallirrhoé, all along the north east shore and up the Wady Hesban. 
To draw out further the contrast between the two shores may be worth 
o 
is comparatively fertile, and abounds not only in smaller plants, but has 
a fair allowance of trees and larger shrubs; nowhere is the eye pained by 
the frightful desolation of the western shore, where a solitary tamarisk or 
salicornia looks like a signal of distress hung out at a distance of a mile 
or two from its next neighbours. Even the oases on the west, as Engedi 
and Zweirah, are sparse, barren, and sandy, compared with Zara and the 
Safieh, to which i iti 
regions with that of the desert, which needs such special conditions of 
soil and climate as the Dead Sea affords, than occurs on the western side. 
The 250 plants found in Moab from the beginning of February to the 
middle of March, belong to fifty-eight natural orders, of which by far the 
best represented are Leguminose with thirty-five species, Composite and 
: ss 
although I took particular pains to remark them only have five in 
Cistinez, Orobanchex, Euphorbiacez, and Cyperacez, having each that 
number. These statistics bring me to results. I think we have sufficient 
data to establish three :— à 
Ist. e flora is remarkable for a small average number of species 
distributed through a large number of orders, an average of four and a 
half species to each of the fifty-eight orders. This fact was previously 
remarked by M is not unnatural in a country which forms 
and water, the flora of the two shores is identical in character and, as far 
" » SIX or se iles removed fro 7 and 1000 feet above it. 
he hot baths of Kallirrhoé, where the heat locally generated by the out- 
burst ve or ten springs of water at 145° F., and the chemical proper: 
ties of the soil and water, tend within a limited area to produce a resu!t 
Similar to that of the Dead Sea itself; this result is not produced except 
in the immediate neighbourhood of the said springs, and does not extend 
the whole way down the gorge to the sea. 
