ubsoil moisture, the
leaves may be reduced in size, converted into thorns, or entirely
dispensed with, in order to check rapid evaporation, they may be covered
with silky or felted hairs, a modification which produces the same
result, or their internal tissue may be succulent or mucilaginous. In
the plants of the Panjab plains there is no difficulty in recognising
these features of a drought-resisting flora. Schimper's map shows in the
north-east of the area a wedge thrust in between the plains' desert and
the dry elevated alpine desert cut off from the influence of the monsoon
by the lofty barrier of the Inner Himalaya. This consists of two parts,
monsoon forest, corresponding roughly with the Himalayan area Cis Ravi
above the 5000 feet contour, and dry woodland of a semi-tropical stamp,
consisting, of the adjoining foot-hills and submontane tract. This wedge
is in fact treated as part of the zone, which in the map (after Drude)
prefixed to Willis' _Manual and Dictionary of the Flowering Plants and
Ferns_, is called Indo-Malayan, and which embraces the Malayan
Archipelago and part of North Australia, Burma, and practically the
whole of India except the Panjab, Sindh, and Rajputana. In Drude's map
the three countries last mentioned are included in a large zone called
"the Mediterranean and Orient." This is a very broad classification, and
in tracing the relationships of the Panjab flora it is better to treat
the desert area of North Africa, which in Tripoli and Egypt extends to
the coast, apart from the Mediterranean zone. It is a familiar fact
that, as we ascend lofty mountains like those of the Himalaya, we pass
through belts or regions of vegetation of different types. The air
steadily becomes rarer and therefore colder, especially at night, and at
the higher levels there is a marked reduction in the rainfall. When the
alpine region, which in the Himalaya may be taken as beginning at 11,000
feet, is reached, the plants have as a rule bigger roots, shorter
stems, smaller leaves, but often larger and more brilliantly coloured
flowers. These are adaptations of a drought-resisting kind.

~Regions.~--In this sketch it will suffice to divide the tract into six
regions:

Plains 1. Panjab dry plain.

2. Salt Range and North West Plateau, from
the frontier to Pabbi Hills.

3. Submontane Hills on east bank of Jhelam.

Hills 4. Sub-Himalaya, 2000-5000 feet.

5. Temperate Himala