THE VEGETATION OF THE ZEMU AND LLONAKH 
VALLEYS OF SIKKIM. 
By 
W, W, Smith ^ G. H. Cave. 
rpHE Sikkim Himalaya including in the term the Darjeeling 
District as well as independent Sikkim is fairly well known 
botanically. In addition to the historic explorations of Sir 
Joseph Hooker in 1848-49, botanists have traversed most of the 
ranges and valleys during the last 40 years and the Calcutta 
Herbarium possesses large collections made by the late Sir George 
King, the late C. B. Clarke, Lieutenant-Colonel D. Prain, J. S. 
Gamble, Sir George Watt, the late K. Pantling, G. A. Gammie, 
by Forest Officers and by the staff of the Government Cinchona 
Plantations and Lloyd Botanic Garden. In addition Lepcha 
collectors have been employed regularly for many years chiefly 
to obtain seeds of such species as are welcomed by botanical 
gardens throughout the world. 
^The result is that probably no corresponding area in India has 
been so fully ransacked for its flora and probably none is so well- 
known, despite the wealth and variety of its vegetation due to 
the great range of altitude and of humidity. There are, however, 
several of the more remote and difficult valleys which have never 
been explored either by botanists or native collectors in addition to 
some which have been only partially so. 
The portion of this Sikkim Himalaya least known is the north- 
west corner comprising the valleys * of the Zemu and Llonakh 
rivers with their tributaries. These valleys are the most distant 
from the main roads, the most difficult of access on account of 
rhododendron jungle or high passes and so inclement and in- 
hospitable that for nine months of the year tbey are devoid of 
inhabitants. In neither of them is there a house of any kind 
beyond a shelter of inclined logs in the Zemu valley and the yak- 
hair tents of the nomad Tibetan herdsmen in Llonakh i There are 
no roads and no bridges and the traveller has to leave his ponies 
behind. Difficulties of commissariat for a large party are great 
in a district where there is nothing to be got from the inhabitants 
B 
