THE KURAM VALLEY, ETC., AFGHANISTAN, 143 
range. There are no Afghanistan specimens from Griffith in the 
herbarium at Kew. The specimens of the cultivated tree collected 
by him in a garden at Kándahár, and so named, belong to Pinus 
halepensis. Furthermore, it is extremely doubtful if the pine he 
speaks of as growing on the ridges of Káfristán at 6000 feet could 
possibly have been P. longifolia. 
Vegetation between Badish-khél and Habib-kalla. 
Up to this point I had noticed that every native when drinking 
from a spring of water, usually made a fresh drinking-ladle from 
the leaf of the JVannorrhops; but here I was informed by the 
officers of the 5th N. I., that in the hills to the north and east of 
Badish-khél, along all the streams and in springs, bowls made from 
the bark of the apricot usually lay floating in the pools for general 
use. This custom I found extended as far west as the Zérán valley ; 
but there the bark from the knots of the walnut constituted the 
usual public drinking-cup. It is a curious custom, showing 
either that only persons of the same brotherhood or of one caste 
traverse these parts, or that the people are more liberal than 
elsewhere, and do not object to drink from a cup that has already 
been used by others. On the conglomerate cliffs overhanging 
the Karmána stream, where it is crossed by the main road, 
a variety of Hypericum cernuum was collected ; it is a bush from 
2 tonearly 4 feet in height, with bright yellow flowers never 
white, but only half the size of the type. Myrtle is common . 
along the watercourses, and not, as previously found, in isolated 
clumps. In the damp corners of what looked like old fields, or 
at least demarcated plots of land, near the British fort of Shá- 
lizán, I collected Ophioglossum vulgatum, where it was growing 
in some abundance. The most common grasses found on the 
shingle plains were Chloris villosa in great flat patches, mapping 
the ground (if I may so term the peculiarity of its growth), a 
few flower-heads occurring on each patch at irregular intervals 
throughout the whole summer, Panicum sanguinale, Andropogon 
punctatus, commutatus, and laniger, and Anthistiria anathera. 
Along the edges of the dry watercourses, and on the higher 
island-like plots of ground in the beds of these dried-up streams, 
Saccharum Griffifhii, a great coarse stiff grass, occurring in 
