DARJEELING TO THIBET. 13 
abundant on Sinchul is triphyllous, and it is like Wallich's .4. speciosum 
(which is also frequent and much larger than is represented by Dr. W.’s 
figure*); the one to which I allude is, however, bulbous, and has a solitary 
trifoliolate leaf, and the hood, expanded laterally most extraordinarily, 
is turned sharply over, and terminated in a long sheathing tail, which 
envelopes the much longer one of the spadix, which, in the shape of 
a slender thread, trails eighteen inches on the ground. This, the 
A, speciosum, and all the species of a verticillate-leafleted groupe, are 
diccious: they are noble plants, and I hope some of the many roots I 
have sent down will survive. The enormous clubs of scarlet berries 
which succeed these cuckoo-flowers are as striking in the woods in 
September as their blossoms are in April, when the cuckoo cries here 
as he does with us. Paris is another. English spring genus now in 
flower, and very plentiful at this elevation (7—9,000 feet). Falconer 
tells me it is the P. polyphylla ; it is really a grand thing, the stems three 
feet high, a whorl of seven to ten leaves, with three to five sepals, as 
many petals, three to eleven stamens, and two to six carpels. I counted ' 
the number of parts in some thirty specimens, for Professor Henslow, 
whose ingenious theory of the formation of the flower of P. quadrifolia 
will find confirmation in the irregularities of this. In autumn the 
fruit is ripe: it attains the size of an apple, bursting by several valves, 
and exhibiting a profusion of scarlet seeds very like those of a pome- 
granate. Disporum and Convallaria are both abundant, and the latter 
very beautiful, for it bears an immense raceme of white flowers, similar 
to those of Muscari, but as large as the C. majalis; this raceme is 
often a foot long. Another species is Wallich's C. oppositifolia. The 
leaves of an Ophiopogon were very abundant, as of various Begonias, 
Didymocarpee, but none in flower. Mr. Edgeworth's genus, Strepto- 
lirion, grows in amazing profusion a hundred yards above Darjeeling, 
to which station it hardly descends. 
On the trunks of trees, at 8,000 feet, there are several epiphytal 
Orchidee, and some which boast considerable beauty: I have three 
from that elevation, but am ignorant of their genera. Between 7,000 
and 8,000 feet, there must be at least twenty species, including Den- 
drobia, three or four Celogynes, an Eria I think, and a Cirrhopetalum. 
Three species of Carer occur on Sinchul; but no grass whatever - 
could I detect : the mountain is also above the region of Cucurbitacee, 
* Tentamen Fl. Nepal., Tab. xx. 
+ 
