The extremely dry lower altitudes of Armenia are occupied by semi-desert and phryganoid xerophyte plant communities with many rare endemics, useful wild plant species and wild relatives of cultivated plants. The rather high proportion of semi- -desert vegetation was transformed to agricultural areas due to irrigation. At higher altitudes, steppes and meadow-steppes are abundant and thorn-cushion communities are rather widespread too. In regions with high annual precipitation, meadows represent species rich and ornamental forest-free vegetation. and Ester Ekrtová, Libor Ekrt.