U2 
THE VEGETATION OF THE ZEMU 
and a tour is consequently expensive. As the three or four months 
during which it is possible to visit these uplands are June to 
September, this means travelling from Darjeeling during the rains 
and the possibility of routes and communications being much 
interrupted. Added to the natural difficulties there has been until 
of late years a political difficulty. The Llonakh has long been 
claimed by the Tibetans who send many yaks and sheep there 
during the short summer. It affords comparatively good grazing — 
where the best is but poor — and is almost inaccessible for those 
animals from the Sikkim villages. Hooker in his Himalayan 
Journals records the numerous difficulties put in his- way by the 
headmen of the various villages to prevent his going further north 
than Lachen. Not so much objection was offered to his proceed- 
ing up the Zemu and Llonakh valleys but he was unable to reach 
the upper portions of these owing to the impenetrable nature of 
the rhododendron forest through which his party was too limited 
in numbers to cut their way. More than 40 years later in 1892 
a proposal to send an official botanist, Mr. G. A. Gammie, to the 
Zemu valley was frustrated by the difficulties the Government 
were at that time experiencing in their relations with the Tibetans 
and it was not deemed safe to permit of the tour. Since that date 
Llonakh has been visited by Mr. J. C. White, C.I.E., late Politi- 
cal Officer in Sikkim, in 1902 (previously in 1891) ; in part by 
Mr. Douglas Freshfield and a party of mountaineers In 1899 [vide 
** Round Kangchenjunga ” by Douglas W. Freshfield), but no 
botanical collections have ever been obtained from this area with 
the exception of a few plants which were collected by Colonel now 
Frank Younghusband of the Tibet Frontier Commission in 1903, 
from the neighbourhood of the Naku La, and which are now in the 
Calcutta Herbarium. 
With a view to studying the flora of this area and of bringing 
back as complete a representation of the vegetation as possible, it 
.was the good fortune of the present writers to be deputed there for 
the months of July- August 1909. 
Preliminary arrangements involved considerable time and 
labour. We shall refer here only to such points as may be of 
service to any one proposing to travel in that area. 
The tent ought to be carefully chosen for lightness and si?:e. 
Except on the flat areas by the Llonakh river, it is almost im- 
possible to find a' level piece of ground on which to pitch a tent 
of any size. Especially in the lower Llonakh valley and the 
iipper Zemu, is it difficult to get a camping ground. In many 
places no path whatever, so that the heavy tent which requires 
