VEGETATION OF BRITISH BALUCHISTAN. 307 
reputation of being the best fodder in the country. Next in 
importance are Pennisetum orientale (up to 7000 ft.), P. flaccidum, 
Stipa capillata and another species, Oryzopsis cerulescens, and 
Andropogon Bladii. Melica Jacquemontii is a frequent grass 
amongst bushes, and seems to have a poisonous effect on all 
animals that eat it. The Pathans call it “ Lawanai butaey." I 
have seen camels seized with a kind of paralysis of the hind 
quarters after eating this grass; but whether it was caused by 
the grass itself or by the larve of some insect that I found very 
abundant in the roots at certain periods, I was unable to deter- 
mine; yet as the bad effect on the animals takes place very 
rapidly, it is probably the grass itself. 
Of the six ferns found in British Baluchistan, Asplenium Ruta- 
muraria and Cystopteris fragilis are fairly abundant near Ziarat, 
and more rarely Cheilanthes Szovitzii, while on Zarghun Asplenium 
viride was found. 
The vegetation on Zarghun is very similar to that about 
Ziarat at the same altitudes, but in the gorge at the head of the 
Hanna Valley, 15 miles N.E. of Quetta, an interesting new thorn, 
Crategus Wattiana, was found. This is a very uncommon tree, 
15 ft. in height, which was only occasionally seen on the con- 
glomerate formation of the Zarghun range. At 9000 ft. on the 
same range Z'u/ipa Biebersteiniana occurs in the shade of bushes, 
and I did not find it elsewhere. A very handsome striking 
plant, abundant on the lower slopes and about Kach, is Salvia 
Hydrangea; its magenta-coloured flowers are used medicinally 
by the Pathans. ; 
Very rare on the hills about Quetta, but fairly abundant locally 
on the stony lower slopes of some of the ranges further east, is 
Vitis persica, a stunted gregarious bush, two to three feet high. 
Forests. 
The juniper, Juniperus macropoda, is the only tree which 
forms forests of any extent, the best of them situated some sixty 
miles east of Quetta, in the neighbourhood of Ziarat, and 
extending over more than 200 square miles of country. There 
also remain a few square miles of juniper on the Zarghun range, 
but in this direction a great deal has been destroyed to keep 
Quetta supplied with fuel for the troops and publie works. The 
juniper usually exists in open forest. Trees with clean boles are 
