364 DR. HOOKER'S MISSION TO INDIA. 
the tropical plants in a temperate region ; exactly as the same conditions 
cause similar forms to reach higher latitudes in the southern hemisphere 
(as in New Zealand, Tasmania, South Chili, &c.) than they do in the 
northern. 
Along this ridge I met with the first Tree-fern. This most beautiful 
‘object delighted me, whether because it was an old friend, or from its 
extreme beauty and grace ; the latter, I expect ; for I had already seen so 
many tree-ferns, and in so many parts of the globe, the Atlantie Islands 
ng — = epe. unns; decre een New Zealand, that if any 
epalled,it should be mine. 
This Sedis as all others known to me, is far inferior to the Tasmanian 
in appearance; it seldom reaches that height (of forty or fifty feet), — 
the trunk is but three or four, instead of twelve or fourteen, in girth, of 
a dark blackish, instead of a rich ochreous brown tint, and the feathery 
coma is ragged in comparison. I presume it to be nearly allied to 
Alsophila gigantea (Wall.) : it never occurs much below 4,000 feet that 
I have seen, and ascends to nearly 7,000. 
Kursiong bungalow, where I stopped a few hours to eat and put my . 
plants in paper, is superbly placed, on a narrow mountain ridge. From 
the west window you look down the valley of the Balasun river, from the 
east that of the Mahanuddy: both rise from the outer range, forming 
the broad, deep, and steep valleys of rivers which give them their 
respective names (about 3,500 feet deep), and are richly wooded from 
the Terai to their tops. Till reaching this spur, I had zigzagged upwards 
along the western slope of the Mahanuddy valley. The ascent from the 
spur at Kursiong to the top of the mountain (on the northern face of 
which Darjeeling is situated), is along the eastern slope of the Balasun. 
From Kursiong a very steep zigzag leads up the mountain, 
through a magnificent forest of chestnut, wallnut, oaks, and Lauri. It 
is difficult to conceive a grander mass of vegetation :—the straight 
shafts of the timber-trees shooting aloft, some naked and clean, with 
grey, pale, or brown barks; others literally clothed for yards with a 
continuous garment of epiphytes, green, and of all kinds of foliage, or 
one mass of blossoms, especially the white Cælogynes, which bloom in a 
profuse manner, and literally powder the trunks with snow. More bulky 
(to appearance) trunks were masses of interlacing climbers, Araliacce, 
Leguminose, Vitis, and Menispermnm, Hydrangea, and Peppers, enclosing 
a hollow, once filled by the now strangled supporting tree, which had 
