6o 
NOTFS FROM A JOURNEY TO NEPAL. 
The plants collected have been named in scanty leisure hours scattered 
over two years, by comparison at the Royal Botanic Gardens, 
Calcutta, except the species of Impatiens, which were kindly named 
by Sir Joseph Hooker. For help in various ways I wish to record my 
thanks to him and to Lieut. -Colonel D. Prain, Lieut. -Colonel J. 
Manners-Smith, Major A. T. Gage and Mr. W. W. Smith. Further 
my best thanks are given to Mr. C. Gilbert Rogers of the Indian 
Forest Service whose knowledge of the forests of Sikkim and Dehra 
Dun has been freely put at my service. 
The belts of vegetation that the road enters. 
The vegetation of the Himalaya has been classed altitudinally by 
Brapdis, and the classification accepted by Drude [vide Drude et 
Poirault, Manuel de Geographic Botanique, pp. 451 — 453), thus : — 
(i) alpine belt; (ii) temperate forest belt; (iii) subtropical - forest 
belt ; and (iv) tropical forest belt. The third belt may well be called 
the cultivation belt, because all along the Himalaya cultivation is most 
intense in it, and more distinctly cuts off the upper forests from the 
lower forests than any other feature. It is indeed very convenient to 
use this intenser cultivation as an aid in defining the vegetative belts. 
I shall now state which parts of the road from British India to 
Nepdl are in the tropical forest belt, the cultivation belt and the belt 
of temperate forests. 
The road from the plains up to Bhimpedi is in the tropical forest 
belt. It strikes the forest some fourteen miles from the British border, 
penetrates it to the foot of the Chorea Ghdti hills, crosses the Chorea 
Ghati by the Bichiakoh pass, and descends slightly to Hettaunda, which 
is in the mdriy i.e., dun or open valley of the Rapti river ; thence 
entering a gorge it climbs gently by Bhdinsa-duhdn and Panran to the 
head of the valley, where detritus has created a small gravel plain. 
On the plain is Bhimpedi and just under it Makapaka. At Bhimpedi 
a very steep ascent begins ; and the road lies in the cultivation. belt ; 
but the hill side up which the path goes is too steep for crops, and only 
a small area bearing them is seen just below the village; however some 
miles away to the east there is extensive cultivation. The fort of 
Sisagarhi is near the top of this hill ; and above it, about the 
Chessapani pass at 6,000 feet, the road reaches the first bit of hill- 
forest, the trees at the pass itself being festooned as on the wet 
ridges of Sikkim with mosses. From the pass the road goes down 
again into the cultivation belt and winds by the river Pinouni through 
the cold valley of Lohari Nepdl, past Tambeh Khani to Markhu at 4,500 
feet ; thence it ascends over downs to Chitlong and so once more into 
