178 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
shall only mention Thymus Serpyllum and Tauscheria lasiocarpa, which 
appear to be quite identical with the European and Caucasian plants. 
At Kalatzo the bed of the Indus is about 10,000 feet; as I travelled 
west, the elevation of the valleys became gradually less, and where 
I entered Dras I was as low as 8,000. In the cultivated tracts below 
origin, which seem to creep up the valley of the Indus. These were 
an Amaranthus and some Panicoid grasses. I had previously met with 
an Andropogon of the Jwarancusa group in the valley of the Indus, and 
in Nubra a species of Chloris ; and even as high as Lé (12,000 feet) 
a little Cyperus which seems to be C. aristatus, and Andropogon Ische- 
mum or an allied species are common. All these appear to me very 
interesting instances of the influence of dry climate and cloudless skies 
in producing in summer a subtropical temperature at very considerable 
elevations. In the moister climate of Nepaul or Java, I presume no 
such plants are to be seen at elevations of 9—12,000 feet. 
After entering the Dras valley, my road was the same as that by 
which I marched from Iskardo to Kashmir in April. It follows the 
course of the Dras river to its source, and then descends suddenly into 
` the Seinde valley, which is traversed by a tributary of the Behat or 
Kashmir river, which joins the latter about ten miles below the town 
had formed no correct idea of the height of the pass. Still 
was not at all prepared to find that it did not exceed 11,300 feet, which 
is the result of an observation the other day. In fact the upper part 
of the Dras valley is without any perceptible rise, and the descent is ex- 
tremely sudden. In this very low elevation I at once found the expla- 
nation of what had very much surprised me when I aseended the Dras 
valley, namely, that the vegetation very rapidly loses its Thibetan cha- 
racter, and consists for the last fifteen or twenty miles almost entirely 
of Indo-Himalayan plants, quite strangers to Thibet. Such genera as 
Vernonia, Aconitum, Achillea, Polemonium,and the Kashmirian species of 
Galium, Nepeta, Veronica, Delphinium, and fifty others might be men- 
tioned. Even Prangos pabularia, the characteristic plant of Dras (and 
plentiful in the Kashmir valley), eannot be considered to belong to the 
Thibetan flora. Birches and Kashmir willows creep up the sides of the 
mountains, and extend seven or eight miles on the Thibetan side of the 
