93 



"In the Corydalis packet are seeds of three species; the 

 "common yellow one of Phallut ; the very similar white one of 

 " beyond Phallut ; and one which has no leaves on its flowering 

 "stem. In the last I have little interest, but it is very pretty. 

 " With the two first when they grow together is a tawny-flowered 

 " similar plant and I wondered if the two could hybridise to form 

 "the tawny-flowered plant. I have botanical specimens which 

 " will enable me to name the plants. 



" The last packet is of the Viola of Tonglu. Hooker in Hooker's 

 " Journ. Bot., vol. ii., 1S50, p. 1 18, and Clarke in the Linnean 

 " Society's Journal, vol. xv., p. 132, mention it without a name. 

 " I have not seen^ flowers, but I collected the seed because these 

 " Violas want figuring from nature. The angle at which the 

 "lateral petals stand, and the position of the upper ones, in a 

 "moment distinguish two species that from herbarium material 

 " were united in the Flora of British India. 



"Now that I have explained what has made me send these 

 "seeds I will go on to the trip. I had a halt of one day at 

 " Sandakphu where my coolies collected for me Aconitam 

 " laciniatum and A. laciniatum xspicatum; but the halt gave me 

 " no time for botanising as I had to go out with the coolies and to 

 " indicate every root that was to be dug up and into which basket 

 "it should go. Then I had two days' halt at Phallut. On the 

 "first I went in the rain to the top of Singlela, having sent my 

 " coolies out in two parties, one to hunt A. heterophylloides and the 

 " other to dig up all there was at an indicated spot on Sabarkum. 

 " On the second day, as the coolies had brought me in A. spicatum 

 " and not A. heterophylloides, I was obliged to go out with them 

 " again . . . Fortunately my Lepcha bearer-sirdar proved his 

 "value by going off in another direction and bringing me in just 

 " what I wanted, so I returned with six cooly loads of roots. 



" The weather gave me morning views — up to 8 a.m. — on more 

 "than half of the days out, and only drenched me twice, so that 

 " I have not to complain of it. The season was late and I was 

 " early — my other visit was in the middle of October, so that I saw 

 " the plants in flower that I had only seen dead before. Sandak- 

 " phu was covered with flowering Aconitum spicatum. The lilac 

 44 Asters in the grass of Sebarkum were not all over. There 

 "were lots of white Umbellifers on Phallut and Corydalis in 

 "quantity beyond. Meconopsis paniculate* was not wholly over. 

 " Two Pedicularis were still out. Saxifraga diversifolia, which 

 " is everywhere, was only just at full flower, and two other yellow 

 " Saxifrages were not quite over. Even Potentilla fruticosa had 

 44 a few flowers on it. But Phallut and Singlela were red with the 

 44 autumn leaves of an Euphorbia and beyond Sandakphu the 

 44 beginning of the end of the season w T as obvious. 



4 - 1 amused myself by the wayside making flower pollination 

 44 notes and am now writing up a short paper. Two things come 

 44 out strongly ; 1, there is not a tree in flower in autumn up there, 

 44 but there are very many herbaceous plants ; and 2, an unusual 

 "proportion of the flowers face the earth, e.g., the Rosae, the 

 44 Heliotrope-set, Triplostegia— in which one would not expect 

 44 earth-facing species, and things like Crawfurdia, the Aconite, 



