FLORA OF TIBET OR HIGH ASIA. 127 
The writings of the earlier European travellers, Marco Polo, 
Hue, Turner, Bogle and Holland, as well as the later native 
Indian travellers, such as Sarat Chandra Das*, contain no 
definite botanical information. 
For the resumption and continuation of botanical work in 
Tibet and the adjoining countries, we are largely indebted to 
Russian explorers and French missionaries, especially during the 
last quarter of the last century. Foremost among the Russians 
was the late General N. M. Przewalski. He began his extensive 
travels in 1871, and between this date and 1885 he crossed Tibet 
from the north almost to the south and from east to west, 
besides making many detours; and he systematically collected 
objects of natural history throughout these journeys. Mr.G.N. 
Potanin, Dr. P. J. Piasezki, and Mr. A. Regel are other Russian 
travellers who made large botanical collections in Chinese Turkes- 
tan, Mongolia, and China, and, to a lesser extent, in Tibet. The 
combined collections of the first three travellers were taken in 
hand by the late Mr. C. J. Maximowicz, and the first part of 
his elaboration of the Tibetan part appeared in 1889, under 
the title of ‘Flora Tangutica.’ Unfortunately the talented 
author did not live to publish any more. This part contains the 
Thalamifloree and Disciflore ; in other words, the natural orders 
Ranunculacew to Rhamnacex, in the sequence of Bentham and 
Hooker’s ‘Genera Plantarum.’ The enumeration is preceded by 
an Introduction in Russian and Latin, to which we are largely 
indebted for general information on Tibet and the neighbouring 
countries. Maximowicz also published the first part of a ‘ Flora 
Mongolica,’ which is of the same extent and of the same date as 
the ‘Flora Tangutica.’ He had previously published a general 
account of the collections, mainly from a geographical point of 
view. To this we shall have occasion to refer again. 
The history of the collections on which this paper is based is 
contained in the “ Itineraries” and other sections. 
* Ugyen Gyatscho, who accompanied Das, made a botanical collection 
between Phari and Lhasa. It is in the Calcutta Herbarium, and has not yet 
been published as a whole, but, judging from the number of new Labiate from 
that region published by Dr. D. Prain (Journ. As. Soc. Beng. lix. 2, pp. 294- 
318), it contains a considerable number of novelties, though perhaps mostly 
belonging to the Himalayan Flora as distinguished from the Tibetan. 
