210 TLORA INDICA. 



Pteris aquilina, together with Eremurus in great abundance. 

 Of other Kunawar plants are Ephedra, Dictamnus, Rosa pim- 

 pinellcefolia, Dianthus, and Scutellaria orientalis. Firms Gerar- 

 diana is very common, with large walnut and other fruit- 

 trees ; and the forest vegetation resembles that of Kashmir, 

 with the addition of Quercus Ilex and Pinus Gerardiana. 



Of eastern forms, which do not, so far as we are aware, ad- 

 vance westward into Kashmir, there are Clematis connata and 

 TroUius acaulis. And of Kashmir and other western forms, 

 not hitherto collected to the eastward, there are — 



Anemone Falconeri. Epimedium elatum. 



Ceratocephalusyafcaifw?. Corydalia adiantifolia. 



11. Kashmir. 



The valley of this name consists of the upper part of the 

 basin of the Jelam ; and from its comparatively great ^ddth, 

 level floor, abundant population, and cultivation, and from 

 its containing by far the broadest sheets of water Icnown any- 

 where within the Himalaya, it has been regarded rather as a 

 separate country, different from the Himalaya proper, than as 

 an integral part of that mountain mass, and one of the many 

 series of valleys that it encloses. This erroneous impression 

 has been much diffused from the circumstance of map-makers 

 isolating it by a well-defined oval girdle of mountains, cut off 

 almost entirely from the rest of the Himalaya, but which 

 has no such independent existence. It would be out of place 

 here to dwell upon the geological causes that have filled the 

 Kashmir valley with deposits to the depth of many hundred 

 feet, and which have given rise to its flat surface and its lakes, 

 and which, if present in any of the western valleys, would 

 render that of Kashmir less conspicuous. 



Kashmir is bounded to the north by the axis of the Hima- 

 laya, which there presents a remarkable depression occupied 

 by the Zoji Pass, elevated only 11,300 feet, and communicating 

 with the Tibetan valley of Dras. To the south, the Pir-Panjal 



