280 KHASIA MOUNTAINS. Chap. XXIX. 



inaccessible ;* while near it grows the Sawifragis ciliaris 

 of our English gardens, a common plant in the north- 

 west Himalaya, but extremely scarce in Sikkim and the 

 Khasia mountains. 



The descent of the Mamloo spur is by steps, alternating 

 with pebbly flats, for 1500 feet, to a saddle which connects 

 the Churra hills with those of Lisouplang to the westward. 

 The rise is along a very steep narrow ridge to a broad long 

 grassy hill, 3,500 feet high, whence an extremely steep 

 descent leads to the valley of the Boga-panee, and the great 

 mart of Chela, which is at the embouchure of that river. 

 The transverse valley thus formed by the Mamloo spur, is 

 full of orange groves, whose brilliant green is particularly 

 conspicuous from above. At the saddle below Mamloo 

 are some jasper rocks, which are the sandstone altered by 

 basalt. Fossil shells are recorded to have been found by 

 Dr. M'Lellandf on some of the flats, which he considers to 

 be raised beaches : but we sought in vain for any evidence 

 of this theory beyond the pebbles, whose rounding we 

 attributed to the action of superficial streams. 



It is extremely difficult to give within the limits of this 

 narrative any idea of the Khasia flora, which is, in extent 

 and number of fine plants, the richest in India^ and pro- 

 bably in all Asia. We collected upwards of 2000 flowering 

 plants within ten miles of the station of Churra, besides 150 

 ferns, and a profusion of mosses, lichens, and fungi. This 

 extraordinary exuberance of species is not so much attri- 

 butable to the elevation, for the whole Sikkim Himalaya 



* This species is very closely allied to, if not identical with P. Martiana of Nepal, 

 which ascends to 8000 feet in the western Himalaya, where it is annually covered 

 with snow : it is not found in Sikkim, but an allied species occurs in Affghanistan, 

 called P. Ritcheana : the dwarf palm of southern Europe is a fourth species. 



+ See a paper on the geology of the Khaaia mountains by Dr. M'Lelland in 

 the " Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal." 



