932 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ASPECTS OF VEGETATION IN KASHMIR. 

 By Emilia F. Noel. 



Kashmir may almost be called the Switzerland of India. It is easily 

 accessible from the Panjab, and the more frequented routes present no 

 difficulties to the traveller, while the topography of the country is varied 

 enough to suit all tastes : the mountaineer can explore almost untrodden 

 ground of snow and ice, and the ordinary tourist will find no lack of 

 beauty among the wooded valleys or high " margs," which are often 

 covered with a sheet of flowers. The English botanist will see no 

 stretches of Heather and Gorse, no woods dotted with Primroses, or 

 colonies of Wild Hyacinths forming those films of blue that we know so 

 well in this country in the spring ; instead he will see the lower slopes 

 of the hills covered with a profusion of the pink Prunus prostrata and 

 the taller Bosa Webbiana, the ordinary Wild Rose of Kashmir, with its 

 spiky habit of growth, each branch being crowned with one or more 

 flesh-colour to carmine flowers, or stony areas sprinkled with the low 

 bushes of the scented Daphne oleoides. There is little grass on the lower 

 hills, and the vegetation is characteristically bush-like in its aspect, and 

 often spiny, as, for instance, when Zizyphus vulgaris or Berberis Lycium 

 covers stony tracts on the "Karewahs," or foothills. Here and there 

 Clematis montana is seen draping some small tree with its showers of 

 white blossoms, or the handsome Jasminum humile presents a mass of 

 bloom. Later on in the year the fragrant officinale is abundant. Two 

 species of Cotoneaster are common on the hills which rise on either side 

 of the broad cultivated Valley of Kashmir, which is practically one great 

 rice swamp. The herbaceous plants of these spurs, which grow among 

 the stones and under shelter of bushes, are for the most part insigni- 

 cant ; such are, for instance, the little brick-red Anemone biflora, 

 Phyteuma Thomsoni, and various Cynoglossums. 



Beyond the Karewah the forest zone, as it were, is reached, and 

 consists of different species of Fir, notably the Himalayan Blue Pine, 

 Silver Fir, Sec, and also many deciduous trees, the latter being plentiful 

 in the Sind and adjoining valleys, especially in shady nullahs to the 

 north and east, where there is plenty of humus, the western and southern 

 aspects of the ranges being barer of vegetation. A few of the more 

 characteristic flowers of the forest zone are our familiar Wild Strawberry, 

 our English Ccphalanthera ensifolia, Solomon's Seal, and Campanula 

 latifolia ; Geranium pratense occurs in many places, together with Viola 

 biflora, Polygonum amplcxicaule with its rose-red flowers, the white star- 

 like Ainslicea aptera on its brown stalks, the foliage appearing later, and 

 Doronicum Boylci. Different species of Corydalis, Spircea, and Bubus 

 are frequent, and often the undergrowth consists almost entirely of the 

 aromatic Skimmia Laurcola, or the disagreeably smelling shrub Viburnum 

 ftetens, which causes an unpleasant odour to pervade the woods wherever 

 it grows, but has an edible dark-red fruit, which is ripe in August. 



