252 ME. C. B. CLARKE OTS 



Notes on the Flora of Parasnath, a Mountain of-' North-western 

 Bengal, in a Letter from C. B. Clarke, F.B.S., F.L.S., 

 to, and with an Introductory Note by, Sir J. D. Hooker, 

 K.C.S.I., F.R.S. 



[Read 19th June, 1884,] 



[The mountain, to the vegetation of which the following pages 

 are devoted, is one of the most interesting in trans- G-angetic India 

 from its isolation and position. It stands on the north-eastern 

 extreme of the elevated region which forms the high land of the 

 Deccan, and is prolonged northward to the bend of the Ganges • 

 from which the descent is abrupt to the plains of the G-an- 

 getic valley, which again extend northward uninterruptedly to the 

 foot of the Himalaya, 



The latitude of Parasnath is nearly 24° N. ; longitude 86° 6' 

 E. ; its distance from Calcutta is 122 miles in a north-eastern 

 direction, and it is 88 miles distant from the G-anges north of it. 

 Its height is about 4500 feet. 



The vegetation of Parasnath is that of the Deccan, with a 

 slight admixture of Himalayan and Malayan types. Of the 

 former of these there are fewer than might have been anticipated 

 from its elevation and position, but not fewer than may well be 

 accounted for by the heat and dryness of the surrounding 

 country. 



The first described ascent made of Parasnath was, as far as I 

 am aware, my own in February 1848, as narrated in the Journal of 

 the Asiatic Society of Bengal (vol. xvii. pt. 2, p. 355), and subse- 

 quently in my Himalayan Journals (Ed. i. vol. i. p. 18), when I 

 collected or observed about 300 species of plants. Its botany 

 has since been investigated successively by Drs. Thomson, 

 Anderson, and King, when Superintendents of the Calcutta 

 Botanical G-ardens, but no complete account of its flora has been 

 published. — J. D. Hooker.] 



Hazaribagh, Oct. 12th, 1883. 



My dear Sir J. D. Hooker, 



I ascended Parasnath on 6th October ; and you may be 

 interested to get some modern news of a mountain which you 

 first made known to the European scientific public. The road 

 you made the ascent by is still sound, but covered with tall 

 grasses and disused. There in a railway station now only 20 



