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FLORA OF TIBET OR HIGH ASIA. 211 
Lying well beyond the abundant rainfall of the outer ranges, the 
ground in general gets, as a rule, but one thorough wetting in 
the year, viz., at the time of the melting of the snows. From 
this it follows that outside the limits of the irrigated cultivation, 
where the hand of man has made oases, the flora is but a scanty 
one, and is restricted to hardy drought-resisting plants, such as 
Artemisia Absinthium, ete. 
“The irrigated ground yields a flora entirely distinct from 
this, which can hardly be said to be truly indigenous, as nearly 
all its members have been introduced by the agency of man, 
either directly or indirectly. A further exception exists in the 
narrow belt of hillside which lies just below the summer snow- 
lines. Here continuous melting of the snows above produces a 
land of ever-moistened soil, which has a flora peculiarly its own, 
consisting mainly of northern European forms, and which is 
quite distinct, alike from that of the dry and from the irrigated 
areas. Its bathymetric limits are from about 13,000 to 15,000 
feet, and its character appears pretty uniform alike in the rainy 
regions of Kashmir and in the dry inner ranges. 
“From a natural history point of view it is an unfortunate 
circumstance that our visit to the Pamir took place at the period 
of the year that it did. Coming, as we did, just after the snow 
had melted, but before the revival of vegetation, the collection 
was disappointingly small from the most interesting region of 
all we visited. 
“In May but few plants had even sprouted, and had it not 
been for a peculiar circumstance, my Pamir collection might 
have been numbered on the fingers. This was that a very large 
number of the plants are provided with inflorescences of a 
peculiarly permanent character. This character, which no doubt 
serves the object of preserving the seed during the long period 
for which the plants are buried under the snow, is especially 
marked on the higher parts of the Pamir at about 14,000 feet. 
and is the common characteristic of a large number of the plants 
of the region of widely different natural orders. In one or two 
instances the preservation extended to the whole of the floral 
whorls, the andrascium excepted, but in the majority of cases it 
extended to the calyx and gynceum alone. Many of the 
plants were thus in a fairly recognizable condition, and collecting 
these naturally-preserved herbarium specimens I was able to 
avoid the annoyance of coming away quite empty-handed. 
