The Himalayan Forests 



3y 

 Win. H. Gallaher 



'tfhen a Californian asoends the outl/ing hills of the 

 Himalayas rjid reaches the region of coniferous forests he 

 is first impressed by the remarkable similarity in eltitu- 

 dinal types or timber belts to those of the Sierra Hevada 

 mountains. This is even more striking when he examines each 

 tree species and correlates it with some corresponding tree 

 of our mountains. This resemblance is so close that a brief 

 comparison rill give a fairly accurate picture of the mountain, 

 forests of northern India. 



The traveler as he approaches rad climbs the first 

 range of Himalayan hills passes through a hardwood zone which 

 may be said to roughly correspond to the outlying oak, ohp.p- 

 arral and dig^or pine belt of the Sierras. He thon enters 

 the chir pino (pinus lon^ifolia) belt. This tree IB very 

 similar to yello^ pine having a straight clear bole, long 

 needles, three to a fasicle, yellow bark, medium sized cones, 

 and grows in open stands which look much like the mature yel- 

 low pine forests of the Sierras. It usually occurs in pure 

 stands or in mixture with Ban (Quercus incana) Aiyar (Pierie 

 ovalifolia) and Burrans (Rhododendron arboreum) . 



Above the chir pine lies the deodar (Cobras Sibani) 

 belt. While there is no tree in the Sierras which corres- 

 ponds exactly to this species, kail pine (Pinus excelsa) is 

 usually found mixed with it. This pine is almost an exact 

 replica of the sugar pine having five needles to a fasicle, 

 loivr horizontal branches, drooping cones, grayish brown bark 

 and soft, easily worked wood. Its most noteworthy character- 

 istic is its reproduction which unlike sugar pine cones in so 

 densely and is so well distributed as to almost exclude the 

 more valuable c"eodar. The deodar belt may, then, be said to 

 correspond to the sugar pine zone snd the deodar which has 

 easily worked, aromatic, and extremely durable wood may be 

 likened to the incense cedar though there is no outward re- 

 semblance between the two. In the upper part of the zone 

 the kail pine gradually .jives way to spruce and fir, the 

 deodar conoiderably outrenging the pine especially on cool 



