Floro-Cenotic Features of Vegetation in the High Mountains of Northwestern Cisbaikalia

Long-term investigations of vegetation in the high-mountains of Northeastern Cisbaikalia within the boundaries of the Baikal Mountains were carried out. Methods of geobotanical mapping were used to identify the structural organization of vegetation communities and their complexes within the goletz and subgoletz belts. Their distribution patterns are illustrated in a cartographic model at a scale of 1:500 000. Cenotic diversity of vegetation communities is represented in the map legend that was compiled on the principles of a multidimensional and multistep classification of vegetation as developed by V.B. Sochava. The legend includes six cenotic subdivisions integrating plant associations and their groups into complexes and combinatins. Each name in the legend number provdes Latin names of dominant species of plants and indicator plants listed the communities in decreasing order. A total of two types of vegetation communities of high mountains were identified: mountain-taiga communities, and communities of mountain tundras. To illustrate the smoothness of the transition of high-mounain vegetation to taiga vegetation the map also shows three epitaxa of taiga type occurring in the subgoletz belt.