346 



VKGETATION AROUND CHOKEY. 



13M. — Proceeded to Chokey, not quite four miles. The top of 

 the pass may be reached by three or four passes. I went by one to 

 the right, which is easy enough, and the descent from which is 

 much better adapted for camels than the made road, which is very 

 steep, with two sharp turns, but soft. The descent thence is gradual, 

 down one of the ordinary ravines, well clothed with the usual shrubs 

 and Xanthoxylon : our camels were a good deal fagged, but more 

 from the halt at the pass, where some cathartic plant abounds and 

 weakens them very much, than fatigue. The view from the top of the 

 pass is very extensive : the plains are seen to have nearly the same 

 level, and are divided here and there very frequently to north-east 

 and north, by the ordinary mountains. 



\4tk. — Halt; water here is not abundant, and is obtained from 

 driblets and pools ; around these, the surface is covered with a rich 

 sward, which affords fine fodder for a small number of horses. In 

 the swampy spots, Beccabunga, Anagallis, Mentha, Carex, Glaux, 

 apparently identical (so far as a memory of 7 years may be trusted,) 

 with the English plant, the small variety of Leontodon, Medicagi- 

 noides, Phleum, and the very small Amaranthoid, Polygonea, occur. 



The hills around Chokey, and below it are rounded, those towards 

 the pass being more steep. They are covered with Centaurea fruticosa, 

 and C. spinosa, a favourite food of camels when it has young shoots, 

 Santonica, Statice, all of which grow precisely as before, Boragineae, 

 Compositae, Labiatse, and Papilionaceae, are the predominant forms, 

 and mostly of the same type : I observe a tendency among Boragineae 

 to have cup-shaped nuts. Generally speaking, the plants are the 

 same as those before found. Rheas, Papaver, Glaucium purpureum, 

 especially the two last are common, Labiata salvoides, Iris persica, 

 and crocifolia (rare), Trichonema, Gentiana, Alyssoides. 



The novelties were Rheum, Silena fruticosa, Linaria, Ruta, Astra- 

 galina, 2 small Silenaceae, Iris, Glaucium aureo-croceum, a beautiful 

 Boragineae with cup-shaped nut, Lotoides, an Hippophaoid looking 

 shrub, Scrophularia sp. singulous, Malthioloids spiralis, Allium, 

 Glaux, Nitella, etc. (See Catalogue 482 to 516.) Graminea very 

 common, Rottboellia and Anthistiria, 2 curious forms, the other 

 more northern, Umbelliferae common, Nari much less so than on the 

 south face. 



The vegetation of the summit which is nearly 7,000 feet, and of 

 peaks which rise 600 to 700 feet above the pass, has no change, ex- 

 cept the abundance of Cruciferae and Muscoides ; Cerasus is the chief 



