former (at all events in the western side which we explored), the range may be divided into three belts, viz. the marginal, the tree-belt, and that of the alpine meadow-land.
The first of these, with the strip of undulating plain belonging to it,[1] has an argillaceous soil studded on the plain with boulders, and on the hills with blocks of fallen rock. In this section the cliffs are smaller and fewer in number than in the other two. This marginal zone or skirt of the mountains is nowhere over a mile and a half in width.
Here the only trees are occasional stunted elms; amongst the bushes we observed the yellow briar (Rosa pimpinellifolia), the caragana, and an occasional Ephedra, such as we had seen in Tsaidam, at the foot of the northern slope of the Burkhan Buddha; nearer the mountains the commonest kinds are the thorny convolvulus (Convolvulus tragacanthoides), and prickly astragalus (Oxytropis aciphylla). The chief herbaceous plants are the thyme (Thymus serpyllum), Solomon's seal (Polygonatum officinale), Pegonum nigellastrum (the last named belonged exclusively to the plain), the onion, also growing on the mountains as high as the alpine region, the
- ↑ The belt of steppe, ten to thirteen miles wide, lying at the foot of the western side of the Ala-shan range, is of a distinct character, differing from other parts of this country. Its surface is seamed with deep gorges, and it has a general and in some places a very steep slope from the mountains to the plain. Its soil is clay covered with shingle or coarse sand, and studded with small fragments of fallen rock from the neighbouring hills; springs occur in parts of it, and the vegetation is the same as that of the desert, with the addition of some mountain plants.
