COLLECTIONS OF DRIED PLANTS FROM TIBET. 105 
connect the very prickly capsule, as a protected fruit, with the 
conditions under which the plant is found at the present 
time. 
I had almost forgotten the diminutive ris which Mr. Baker 
has described as a new species. This and Allium senescens, a 
plant widely spread in Tibet, Siberia, and Mongolia, are the onl y 
two petaloid monocotyledons. 
Let me now proceed to give a few figures in relation to the 
altitudes and general distribution of the plants constituting the 
vegetation of this elevated region, the colours of their flowers, and 
some other particulars. 
With regard to elevation, two species are recorded from 
below 15,000 feet; 14 from between 15,000 and 16,000 feet; 
35 from between 16,000 and 17,000 feet; 57 from between 
17,000 and 18,000 feet ; 5 between 18,000 and 19,000 feet; and 
one, Saussurea tridactyla, to which I have already alluded, from 
19,000 feet. 
So far as natural orders are concerned, there is not much 
to be said. With the exception of the Gnetacee (Ephedra), 
they are all represented in Britain, and are mostly of world- 
wide distribution. The predominating orders are :—Composite, 
yielding 21 species; Leguminose, 14 species; Graminex, 13 
species; Cruciferg, 11 species ; and Ranunculacea, 8 species. 
Coming to genera: about half a dozen are restricted to the 
Himalayan and Tibetan regions, and the rest are mostly of wide 
distribution. The genera most numerous in species are Astra- 
galus, Oxytropis, Saussurea, Ranunculus, and Gentiana. The 
genera Astragalus and Oxytropis are 80 numerous in species, very 
many of which are not represented by authenticated specimens at 
Kew, and so difficult, that I have not attempted to work out the 
species in this collection beyond comparing them with those in the 
Kew Herbarium. The beautiful alpine genus Sawssurea, of which 
there are so many species in the mountains of Northern India and 
Western China, is represented by no fewer than seven species, 
two of which I have described as new. But I wish to say with 
regard to the dozen or so of forms described as new species, they 
may, some of them at least, prove to be reduced or impoverished 
conditions of other species. Several that I at first took for new 
species I eventually referred to others, as the differences were 
limited to size and habit, evidently due to the local conditions. 
The distribution of the species is more interesting; yet, as 
