Botan ical G corraphy. Ae 4AT 
characteristic product of this region; the further one advances 
south, the greater is the number of plants cultivated for food — | 
‘or for some other useful quality. Along with cereals, the 
grape-vine and olive, are found the mulberry, maize, millet, 
rice, water-melon, orange, fig, cotton, and even the date- - 
palm, sugar-cane, plantain, and batatas. Many of these ~ 
plants, as well as the Indian fig (Ofuniza), agave, and aloe, 
grow in this region only under cultivation. One of its 
peculiarities is the great abundance of evergreen trees—the 
- laurel, myrtle, oleander, olive, evergreen oak, &c.—as well as 
of thorny shrubs. ‘These latter often cover wide tracts, to. 
the exclusion of almost all other vegetation, preqventy form- 
ing dense thickets. 
4. Lhe Steppe Region. 
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This region stretches from the mouth of the Danube to 
the affluents of the Amoor ; from the central Volga to the 
coast of the Persian Gulfand the crests of the Himalayas. The _ 
gradual rise of the ground from the basin of the Caspian Sea 
to the Asiatic highlands neutralises the approach towards the 
equator, amounting to 27° of latitude. Throughout this im-.. 
mense region there prevails a uniform alternation of three. 
periods in the year; the severe and protracted winter 1s 
summer, which is succeeded almost immediately by the 
snow-fall of winter. It is only the short spring that is 
favourable to the growth of vegetation. The peculiar plants. 
of the steppes have therefore, in some cases, a short existence, 
in Others special means of protection against the drought 
of summer. Among the most characteristic forms of vege- 
tation are plants with bulbous underground stems, yielding 
a volatile ojl, or covered with spines or hairs. The dif- 
ferent kinds of steppes—grass, salt, and sand—maintain_ 
peculiar forms of vegetation ; trees, or even shrubs, occur 
only where vegetable life is aided by abundance of water 
followed by a short spring, and this by a rainless burning © 
or artificial irrigation. Of cultivated plants, rice, cotton, and 
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