14 GENERAL COLLETT AND MR. W. B. HEMSLEY ON PLANTS 
Joseph Hooker * observed the same thing in the investigation 
of the Khasia hills, where, he states, many genera aud species 
appear on naked and exposed moor-like uplands at 5000 to 6000 
feet which are not found on the outer ranges of Sikkim under 
10,000 feet. “ In fact,” he continues, “ strange as it may appear, 
the temperate flora descends fully 4000 feet lower in the latitude 
of Khasia (25° N.) than in that of Sikkim (27° N.), though 
the former is two degrees nearer the equator.” 
The Southern Shan hills are actually within the tropic, lying 
between 19° and 22° N., and there temperate types appear in 
abundance at 4000 feet. Indeed, in looking through the enume- 
ration, it would seem that temperate types prevail at that eleva- 
tion, some descending even lower. Among those occurring at 
4000 feet are Thalictrum, Anemone, Delphinium, Silene, Stellaria, 
Hypericum, Impatiens, Agrimonia, Poterium, Epilobium, Enanthe, 
Galium, Echinops, Primula, Fraxinus, Pedicularis, Mentha, 
and Ajuga. In short, 85, er about one fifth of the genera repre- 
sented in the collection, are British. The combination of causes 
producing this result we are unable to explain, but the compa- 
ratively small rainfall has probably had much to do with it. 
GRAMINEZ. 
(By Mr. Hemsley.) 
Since the foregoing was read before the Society, the Grasses 
have been received and determined. They number about eighty 
species, all of them probably previously described, though there 
are three or four well-marked forms referred with doubt to the 
nearest allied species. Taken as a whole, the grasses are of a 
more tropical type than the rest of the collection f, belonging 
largely to the tribe Andropogoneæ and the genera Panicum and 
Eragrostis. Specially interesting of the tribe in question is the 
little-known Ratzeburgia pulcherrima of Kunth, the Aikinia 
elegans of Wallich’s * Plante Asiatic Rariores, t. 273. In the 
letterpress (vol. iii. p. 46), Wallich describes it as without 
exception the most lovely and elegant grass that he had ever 
seen, being of a pale glaucous colour, and the erest of the outer 
* «Himalayan Journals,’ ed. 1, ii. p. 281. 
* This is explained by the fact that a larger proportion of this natural order 
was collected near Meiktila on the plain in Upper Burma. 
