Summary
Included here is a biozone known as Turania which comprises the deserts and semi-deserts of eastern Transcaucasia, the precaspian lowlands including the lower reaches of the Volga and Ural rivers, the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea to the basin of Lake Ala Kul, the Ust Urt Plateau, the Turan lowland around the Aral Sea, the Kara Kum and Kyzyl Kum deserts, the Muyunkum Sands, Bet-Pak-Dola and the Sary-Ishikotrau sands, the foothills of the Piedmont Plains along the Kopet Dagh and extending along the Pamiro-Alai and along the western Tien Shan, the intermontane valleys of the Mirzachcul, the Karshingsky Steppe and other plains of southern Uzbekistan.
Of the endemic and near endemic vascular plants so far recorded there are about 624 species in 241 genera and 48 families. There are 37 endemic genera (marked red) but no endemic families.
References
Chemonics International Inc. Washington, DC. 2001. Biodiversity Assessment for Turkmenistan. Submitted to USAID Central Asian Republics Mission, Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Fet, V. & Atamuradov, K. I. 1994. Biogeography and Ecology of Turkmenistan. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Wendelbo, P. 1971. Some distributional patterns within the flora Iranica area. In: Plant Life of South-West Asia. Eds. P. H. Davies, P. C. Harper & I. C. Hedge. The Botanical Society of Edinburgh.