Technical Terms

Technical terms appearing on various FloraGREIF pages but mostly in habitat descriptions.

Term Explanation
Balks Field boundary
Barkhans Moving parabel shaped desert dunes
Bel Pediment (shallow foothill region of mountains, in arid regions filled with rubble)
Bel, proluvial Coarse to fine sediment accumulated at the foot of a slope building a deltaic lobe, created by weathering of the rocks
Biurgun (e.g. feather grass-biurgun-Ephedra associations) Russian for Anabasis salsa (Stipa-Anabasis-Ephedra community)
Cast (marmot cast) Marmot mound, burrow
Chee (chee grass stands, chee grass thickets) Achnatherum splendens (Trin.) Nevski
Fans (alluvial fans) River sediment in fan-like deposition
Gnawers‘ holes Mound or burrow of rodents
Goletz, goltzy High-montane (alpine) tundras or typical soils of alpine tundra, Russian plural of goletz
Gorge Canyon, ravine
Hammadas Stony deserts
Hypnaceous (e.g. hypnaceous bogs / forests) Refers to the moss family of Hypnaceae within the order of Hypnales
Kolki (birch kolki) Insular groves (usually with birch or aspen) in forest-steppe areas (Grubov 2001: 156)
Melkozem (e.g. melkozem-rubble slopes) Russian, refers to fine soil texture such as chalk, loam or silt (fine soil-rubble slopes)
Placer (e.g. rock placers in alpine belt) Accumulation of minerals in sediments such as sand and gravel formed by deposition
Puffy / puffed (puffy / puffed solonchaks) Refers to the swelling and shrinking dynamics of clayey soils in a semi-/arid climate
s.m. Meant is meter above sea level (a.s.l.)
Sagon Cattle or sheep pen, the place where lifestock stays overnight (often to shelter them from carnivores)
Saltwort (e.g. black saltwort deserts) Halophytic plants, such as glasswort (Salicornia) or further similar species of Chenopodiaceae
Sasa solonchak Alkaline soil with saline upper crust on the surface, devloping in a semi-/arid climate under ascending groundwater in dry regions of Central Asia
Sayr Narrow, canyon-like beds of a temporary river (Arabic wadi, Afrikaans rivier)
Sazes Habitats with constant regime of moistening by groundwaters in dry regions of Central Asia
Schistose (schistose slopes) From schist, a group of medium-grade metamorphic rocks, a kind of slate
Sheep’s-fescue Festuca ovina L. (and related microspecies)
Solonchaks Alkaline soil with saline crust on its surface in a semi-/arid climate
Solonetz Alkaline clayey sodium soils with swelling and shrinking dynamics in a semi-/arid climate
Sondoks Saline soils
Spur (tops of spurs) Foothills, rock overhang
Tailing (upper parts of tailings) Originally means coarse sediment, partly applied for pediment, similar to ‚bel‘
Tailing, proluvial Coarse to fine sediment accumulated at the foot of a slope building a deltaic lobe, created by weathering of the rocks
Takyr Soil or surface of clayey soils forming a dry crust with shrinking fissures on the surface, often with cyanobacteria layers when wet
Takyred (takyred depressions, lowlands) Refers to the dried crust with shrinking fissures at its surface, often heavily saline
Talus Surface of broken rocks found on mountain slopes and at the base of cliffs (pieces usually of larger size than scree) (Pyak et al. 2008)
Tansy Yellow small herbs, it may refer to various families
Taro (e.g. taro deserts… – habitat data of Astragalus gubanovii Ulzij. in Plants of Central Asia, Vol. 8c, 2004) Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott, a tropical plant without occurrence in continental Central Asia. (This term is probably a misapplied translation.)
Toyrim Saline soil places, clayey solonchaks
Tugai forests Riparian Populus gallery forests in arid regions of Central Asia
Urema Decidous floodplain forest (Grubov 2001: 21)
Wormwood (e.g. wormwood-grass steppes) Species of Artemisia (sage) growing as dwarf shrubs
Wortwood (e.g. wortwood-saltwort desert) Frequent orthographic mistake in English-translated floras, meant is wormwood – a species of Artemisia (sage) growing as dwarf shrubs
Zagon Cattle or sheep pen, the place where lifestock stays overnight (often to shelter them from carnivores)

data compiled by: A. Zemmrich