DR. THOMSON'S MISSION TO THIBET. ry? 
pass, but no Pines, for which I suppose the climate is still too dry. 
These last commence several hundred feet below the pass, and are 
plentiful in the Scinde valley, which is here elevated 9,000 feet, and 
produces a most luxuriant vegetation. For the open spots I was rather 
too late, as the rank herbage, rising to three or four feet high, was 
dried up; but in the dense birch woods, through which I penetrated 
with difficulty, I obtained many valuable additions to my collection. 
Nepeta Govaniana, connata, and others whose names I have not deter- 
mined, Aconita, gigantic Umbellifere, and a multitude of Composite, 
luxuriated in these damp shady woods. During two days I collected 
upwards of a hundred species, of which twenty-five or thirty were quite 
new to me. Iwas more than anything struck with the occurrence of 
early spring species in full flower, in places from which the snow had 
only recently melted, In such places I gathered, on the 27th and 28th 
of September, Primula, Thalictra, Myosotis, an Allium (which in warm 
spots I found with withered leaves and capsules burst), a Cerasus, 
Corydalis, Fragaria, all hastening to expand, if possible, their flowers 
during the short summer yet left. In one place, close to a large patch 
of snow, a shrubby willow was still quite leafless, with buds just swell- 
ing. A little further off, the catkins were beginning to expan 
In the lower part of this valley, the autumnal vegetation was still luxu- 
riant, though most of the species were familiar to me as Simla plant 
In the open Kashmir plain, however, I have met with some Agen 
but of course nothing which escaped Jacquemont. Eryngium planum 
was obtained by Royle’s collectors ; and I have a Daucus (perhaps D. 
Carota), two Ceutauree, a Sium, and some others. In the rice-fields 
which are now nearly ripe, Alisma Plantago, Ammannia, and Cyperacee 
of sorts are all plants of the plains. The other marsh plants which I 
have seen are Lycopus, Lythrum, Marsilea, Myosotis palustris? Ranun- 
culus aquatilis; and when I visit the lake, which I have not yet done, 
I hope to gather many more. 
Tth October.—I am afraid you will think I have been far. too 
diffuse in what I have written above, for however interesting to me, 
much of it must be familiar to you. I shall in future try to be more 
concise. 
I seem to have, in one of my letters, made use of the name Myrica 
esculenta. I meant the common Myrica sapida of the Himalaya, 
which produces an esculent fruit, erpai however, good eating. I do 
