ON COLLECTIONS OF DRIED PLANTS FROM TIBET. 101 
On two small Collections of Dried Plants from Tibet. By W. 
Botrine Hemstey, F.R.S., A.L.S.; with an Introductory 
Note by Lieut.-Gen. R. Srracuzy, C.S.1., F.R.S., F.L.S. * 
(Contributed by permission of the Director of the Royal 
Gardens, Kew.) 
[Read 6th April, 1893.] 
(Piates LV. & V.) 
Caprain BoweEnr’s expedition traversed Tibet from west to east, 
starting from Lé in Ladak, in latitude 34° N. and longitude 
79° E., and passing into China in latitude 30° N. and longitude 
100° E. His route lay on a line about 250 to 300 miles north 
of the main peaks of the Himalaya, and the point where he 
entered China, the lowest in this part of the journey, was 
upwards of 9000 feet above the level of the sea. The greater 
part of his road, however, was above 14,000 feet and the 
average was more, probably upwards of 15,000 feet above the sea. 
The expedition is the first conducted by Englishmen that has 
traversed Tibet throughout its length; and it is important as 
fully establishing the general character of the country, as being 
truly indicated by the Chinese maps, and as being an extremely 
elevated and rough plateau broken up by a multitude of moun- 
tain-ridges, among which are interspersed a vast number of lakes 
and pools of varying sizes, into which the surface-drainage collects, 
without forming streams of any magnitude. These features 
extend from the 80th to the 92nd meridians—to the west of the 
80th meridian the drainage collecting into rivers that flow off to 
the Indus, and to the east of the 92nd meridian the drainage 
passing away to the eastward into the Bay of Bengal or the 
China Sea. 
The climate of these parts of Tibet is very extreme. The air 
is very dry, and the sun’s power in the rarefied and usually 
cloudless sky very great. The vegetation is meagre in the last 
degree ; and in the tract that I visited, which being much nearer 
to the Himalaya than the region through which Capt. Bower 
passed is no doubt better supplied with moisture, I estimated that 
not one twentieth part of the surface was covered with vegetation. 
* To this is appended a brief account of some plants, since received at 
Kew, collected by Mr. W. Woodville Rockhill on his journey in 1892 through 
Central ‘Tibet, from Mongolia southward to the Tengri Nor and eastward 
into China. 
