248 



OBSERVATIONS 



ON 



HIMALAYAN CONIFERS. 



from those of Sirhind ; but on Soorkhunda Devee, near Dhu- 

 noultee forest, two stages east of Mussooree, the Pindrow ap- 

 pears on the outermost range of the Himalaya, where it attains 

 the elevation of Bhutkot, 9,200 feet. Dr. Hoffmeister fixes its 

 limits at 8,000 and 9,500 feet, and (p. 495, 496) states that in 

 Gurhwal and Kumaoon, travelling N.W. from Nynee Tal, 

 Picea Pindrow and Webbiana first occur on the spurs of 

 Toongnath mountain. But this statement is completely erro- 

 neous, and could only arise from the most hurried and superficial 

 survey of the intermediate country. The Pindrow, as just 

 mentioned, abounds on Bhutkot, a few miles east of Dwarahat, 

 one of his stages ; while near Sunianee, the site of Lohba villa 

 (p. 494), it is in equal or greater abundance 3 or 4 miles east 

 on the Byansee, Kankur, Kala-jabur, and Kala-bun mountains 

 and forests ; the last being so named (black forest) from it. A 

 few miles west of Sunianee is Doodootolee mountain, the Gun- 

 diyal Gebirge of Ritter's map, under which designation (that of 

 a village merely) it is here named by Dr. Hoffmeister. Vast 

 forests of Pindrow cover its northern and western slopes and 

 spurs : and the last 500 or 600 feet are covered with Picea 

 Webbiana, amongst which, on one side, are the sources of the 

 (western) Ramgunga ; and on the other those of the Nyar, the 

 last considerable affluent of the Ganges before it quits the moun- 

 tains. Doodootolee is a grand outburst of granite, unnoticed 

 in any of our geological maps ; the summit is nearly 10,300 

 feet ; and here I first remarked that the tree Rhododendron^ 

 which in Kumaoon also flourishes to 11,000 feet, is not the com- 

 mon scarlet one, but has rosy flowers, and is, therefore, probably 

 Don's R. arboreum, floribus roseis, a variety and elevation un- 

 known, I think, in Busehur.* Captain A. Gerard assigns 

 8,340 feet as the inferior limit of the Pindrow on the southern 

 face of Muhasoo ; on the northern side, as well as near Illanee 

 on the Bireh Gunga, in Gurhwal, it certainly descends nearly a 

 thousand feet lower, delighting, like the spruce, in damp cold 

 glens, where we search in vain for the cedar, the cypress, and 

 the pine. In such situations, it constitutes the main feature of 



* It is needless to say that this diminution of colour is attributed by the 

 people very confidently to the increased cold ; yet there is a difficulty in 

 adopting this view, even with so small an amount of difference in form as is 

 here apparent. During the present unseasonably dry month of July, 1849, 

 the common scarlet Rhododendron is everywhere in blossom ; and the effect 

 of the heat is not only considerably to diminish the size, but also the inten- 

 sity of colour in the flowers, which is reduced nearly to that of the Doodoo- 

 tolee variety. Are we to reconcile the phenomena by the fact that the sun's 

 rays on Doodootolee at 10,000 feet are really more intense than on Binsur 

 at 7,000, and that it is their heat, and not the cold of the atmosphere, which 

 blanches the flowers of the rosy variety ? 



