126 DORJILING. Chap. V. 



tree, leafless in winter and also during the flowering season, 

 when it puts forth from the ends of its branches great rose- 

 purple cup-shaped flowers, whose fleshy petals strew the 

 ground. On its branches, and on those of oaks and laurels, 

 Rhododendron Dalhousice grows epiphytically, a slender 

 shrub, bearing from three to six white lemon-scented bells, 

 four and a half inches long and as many broad, at the end 

 of each branch. In the same woods the scarlet rhododen- 

 dron (B. ardor •eum) is very scarce, and is outvied by the 

 great B. argenteum, which grows as a tree forty feet high, 

 with magnificent leaves twelve to fifteen inches long, 

 deep green, wrinkled above and silvery below, while the 

 flowers are as large as those of R. Dalhousice, and grow 

 more in a cluster. I know nothing of the kind that exceeds 

 in beauty the flowering branch of B. argenteum, with its 

 wide spreading foliage and glorious mass of flowers. 



Oaks, laurels, maples, birch, chesnut, hydrangea, a 

 species of fig (which is found on the very summit), and 

 three Chinese and Japanese genera, are the principal 

 features of the forest ; the common bushes being Aucuba, 

 S/cimmia, and the curious Helwingia, which bears little 

 clusters of flowers on the centre of the leaf, like butcher's- 

 broom. In spring immense broad-leaved arums spring 

 up, with green or purple-striped hoods, that end in 

 tail -like threads, eighteen inches long, which lie along the 

 ground ; and there are various kinds of Convallaria, Paris, 

 Begonia, and other beautiful flowering herbs. Nearly 

 thirty ferns may be gathered on this excursion, including 

 many of great beauty and rarity, but the tree-fern does 

 not ascend so high. Grasses are very rare in these woods, 

 excepting the dwarf bamboo, now cultivated in the open 

 air in England. 



Before proceeding to narrate my different expeditions into 



