An isolated tract of huge, precipitous, sandstone and granite mountains, ranging up to 1,754 m (Jabal Rum, the highest point in Jordan), separated from each other by flat, sandy 'corridor'-wadis (at 800 m), and surrounded by a desert of extensive siltflats and mobile dunes. The predominant desert vegetation is a scanty shrub-steppe of Haloxylon, Anabasis, Retama, Artemisia and Acacia tortilis bushes. Amygdalus arabicus bushes are common in sandy wadis and in gorges leading into the mountains. Vegetation on the high and inaccessible peaks of the mountains is poorer than in wadis, including scattered Acacia tortilis and Juniperus trees, which also occur along seepage lines in Wadi Rum at the base of Jabal Rum, together with patchy, remnant vegetation of Pistacia, Ficus, Olea and Phoenix palms. The main land-uses are nomadic pastoralism (sheep, goats and camels), a Ministry of Agriculture irrigation project on the siltflats (centred on Disi and Abu Suwana) and 'wilderness tourism'.