166 TONGLO. Chap. VII. 



sixteen inches long, is the tallest and the most abundant. 

 — (2) Chesnut. — (3) Laurinem of several species, all 

 beautiful forest -trees, straight-boled, and umbrageous above. 

 — (4) Magnolias.* — (5) Arborescent rhododendrons, which 

 commence here with the R. arbor earn,. At 8000 and 9000 

 feet, a considerable change is found in the vegetation ; the 

 gigantic purple Magnolia Cawpbellii replacing the white ; 

 chesnut disappears, and several laurels : other kinds of 

 maple are seen, with Rhododendron argent eum, and Staun- 

 tonia, a handsome climber, which has beautiful pendent 

 clusters of lilac blossoms. 



At 9000 feet we arrived on a long flat covered with 

 lofty trees, chiefly purple magnolias, with a few oaks, 

 great Pgri and two rhododendrons, thirty to forty feet high 

 (R. barbatum, and R. arboreum, var. roseum): Skimmia and 

 Sgmplocos were the common shrubs. A beautiful orchid 

 with purple flowers {Codogyne WallicMi) grew on the 

 trunks of all the great trees, attaining a higher elevation 

 than mosfc other epiphytical species, for I have seen it at 

 10,000 feet. 



A large tick infests the small bamboo, and a more hateful 

 insect I never encountered. The traveller cannot avoid these 

 insects coming on his person (sometimes in great numbers) 

 as he brushes through the forest ; they get inside his dress, 

 and insert the proboscis deeply without pain. Buried head 

 and shoulders, and retained by a barbed lancet, the tick is 

 only to be extracted by force, which is very painful. I 



* Other trees were Pyrus, Saurauja (both an erect and climbing species), Olea, 

 cherry, birch, alder, several maples, Hydrangea, one species of fig, holly, and 

 several Araliaceous trees. Many species of Magnoliaceaz (including the genera 

 Magnolia, Michelia, and Talauma) are found in Sikkim : Magnolia Campbellii, 

 of 10,000 feet, is the most superb species known. In books on botanical 

 geography, the magnolias are considered as most abounding in North America, 

 east of the Rocky Mountains ; but this is a great mistake, the Indian mountains 

 and islands being the centre of this natural order. 



