420 Capt. N. Vicary^s Notes on the Botany of Sinde. 



XLIV. — Some Notes on the Botany of Sinde. By Captain N. 

 ViCARY, 2nd European Regiment *. 



The following notes have been made from plants, collected under 

 considerable difficulties, at seasons (Dec, Jan., Feb.) the worst 

 that could be selected for collecting plants, or when I was accom- 

 panying an army in an enemy's country, with scarcely the means 

 of transporting my private baggage. I mention this merely to 

 show that much remains to be done of botanical interest in Sinde, 

 and that my collection gives but a limited, although a charac- 

 teristic idea of the plants that flourish in that region. The flora 

 of Sinde falls naturally into three divisions, that of the hills, the 

 plains, and the coast. The hills, being either the bases or out- 

 liers of the Hala range, are barren in the extreme, owing to the 

 want of rivers, the rareness of natural springs, their saline nature 

 where they do exist, and the absence of periodical rains. 



Little that could be called soil exists ; a few of the intervening 

 valleys only are favoured with arable land. 



The hilly country generally presents a most desolate and bar- 

 ren appearance — little vegetation meets the eye — scarcely any- 

 thing but the bare, broken, pale or rusty yellow tertiary strata 

 of which they are composed. My Beloch guides informed me 

 that rain at a proper season falls on an average about every fourth 

 year, that shortly afterwards vegetation appears abundantly, and 

 that on those occasions the Belochees are in the habit of collect- 

 ing and storing dried grass ; at such seasons the botanist would 

 doubtless find much to excite attention, but at any time the few 

 plants found are very interesting. 



A species of palm is very abundant in this division, near 

 springs and lining the banks of water-courses. If not new, I be- 

 lieve it to be Chamarops humilis, but I have seen neither flowers 

 nor fruit. The tree has scarcely any stem above ground ; the 

 leaves are flabelliform, and the petioles channeled with lacerate 

 stiff margins. The denuded and dry spadix of one tree which I 

 saw was about six feet high, with numerous lateral branchlets. The 

 Belochees make sandals of the leaves of this tree. A Viola is 

 found near water-courses, nearly allied to, if not identical with, 

 V. patrinii. 



A species of Reaumuria, with leaves differing somewhat from 

 the described kinds, also exists on the tops of some of the lower 

 hills. This, and a Scrophularineous plant (Anticharis), are the 

 most ornamental plants found in the Lower Halas. 



A Grewia, allied to G. sapida, forms small shrubs rising from 

 the fissures of the rocks ; its small red berries are eatable. 



* From the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal for Nov. 1847. 



