April, 1848. VEGETATION OF PACHEEM. 11?, 



unfavourable to that order. Clematis was rare, and other 

 Ranunculacece still more so. Cruciferce were absent, and, 

 what was still more remarkable, I found very few native 

 species of grasses. Both Poa annua and white Dutch 

 clover flourished where accidentally disseminated, but only 

 in artificially cleared spots. Of ferns I collected about 

 sixty species, chiefly of temperate genera. The supremacy 

 of this temperate region consists in the infinite number of 

 forest trees, in the absence (in the usual proportion, at any 

 rate) of such common orders as Composites, Leguminosce, 

 Cruciferce, and Ranunculacece, and of .Grasses amongst 

 Monocotyledons, and in the predominance of the rarer and 

 more local families, as those of Rhododendron, Camellia, 

 Magnolia, Ivy, Cornel, Honeysuckle, Hydrangea, Begonia, 

 and Epiphytic orchids. 



From Pacheem, the road runs in a northerly direction to 

 Dorjiling, still along the Balasun valley, till the saddle of 

 the great mountain Sinchul is crossed. This is narrow, 

 stretching east and west, and from it a spur projects 

 northwards for five or six miles, amongst the many 

 mountains still intervening between it and the snows. 

 This saddle (alt. 7,400 feet) crossed, one is fairly amongst 

 the mountains : the plains behind are cut off by it ; and 

 in front, the snows may be seen when the weather is 

 propitious. The valleys on this side of the mountain run 

 northwards, and discharge their streams into great rivers, 

 which, coming from the snow, wind amongst the hills, 

 and debouche into the Teesta, to the east, where it divides 

 Sikkim from Bhotan. 



Dorjiling station occupies a narrow ridge, which divides 

 into two spurs, descending steeply to the bed of the Great 

 Rungeet river, up whose course the eye is carried to the 

 base of the great snowy mountains. The ridge itself is 



