MY FOURTH EXPEDITION TO CHINA 161 



extracts from my diary may, perhaps, convey some idea of the 

 wealth of vegetation found in this region. 



" The mountains are clad with Oak (largely scrub), Pinus Mas- 

 soniana and Cypress. A few Keteleeria trees occur and also Liqui- 

 dambar formosana. Populus silvestrii with its light grey bark was 

 a very common tree. Wood-oil trees were a wonderful sight and 

 most abundant. In the ravine they were in full leaf and the 

 fruits swelling, but from fifteen hundred feet up to three thousand 

 feet they were leafless and covered in flowers. By the side of 

 streams at low altitudes Rosa midtiflora was a pretty sight with its 

 white and pink blossoms, but the Musk Rose was the flower of 

 the day — bushes six to twenty feet tall and more in diameter, 

 nothing but tresses of white, fragrant flowers. On some old graves 

 I gathered a sulphur-yellow flowered form of Rosa Banksiae; this 

 I think must have been planted. Rose bushes are a special fea- 

 ture in these parts and numerically are the commonest of shrubs. 

 Around our houses the hard}^ rubber tree (Eucommia ulmoides) is 

 cultivated for its bark, which is a valued tonic medicine. Facing 

 our lodgings is a massive peak called Wan-tiao-shan ; its face a 

 sheer precipice of hard limestone, the summit and farther slopes 

 apparently well forested. The people of this place, like the 

 country people everywhere in these parts, are extremely nice and 

 obliging and it is a real pleasure to be amongst them. 



Wan-tiao-shan looked too tempting to be passed by without 

 investigation and we spent the day, and a very hard day too, in 

 its ascent and descent. Leaving our lodgings at 6.30 A. M. several 

 hours were spent rounding the spurs and surmounting the cul- 

 tivated and scrub-clad land which subtend the mountain proper. 

 At six thousand feet we reach bamboo-scrub; a path through this 

 leads to an abandoned Huang-lien cultivation where medicinal 

 Rhubarb is now cultivated, and the drug Tangshen extraordinarily 

 abundant. At six thousand five hundred feet we enter the timber. 

 At the margin of the timber to the left of the road are extensive 

 plantations of the drug Huang-lien. This interesting plant (Coptis 

 chinensis) is grown under a framework of brushwood reared some 

 three to four feet above the ground. The drug is used as a tonic 

 and blood-purifier. 



As the path winds the timber is at first small with plenty of 



