46 
A NOTE ON THE HIMALAYAN 
from Nepal which the Botanic Garden owe6 to the liberality of the 
Honourable Edward Gardner, Resident at Katmandu, are also specimens 
and plants of the Paper-shrub, which I am informed by that gentleman 
grows very commonly in that couutry and when in flower is exquisitely 
fragrant. It appears there are two varieties one with perfectly white, 
the other With reddish flowers ; both are used for ornament and for the 
manufactory of Paper/’ (Wallich in Asiat. Research, Vol. XIII, p. 386.) 
Wallich’s description of the Daphne was read to the Asiatic Society in 
1818 and the volume containing the description published in 1820 along 
with a very good figure. 
It is evident then that in the beginning two ‘ forms ’ were recog- 
nised. Oar observations in the Eastern Himalaya have persuaded us that 
as far as that region is concerned there are two distinct species (apart 
from D. involucrata and D. retusa) and for the present we may distin- 
guish them as the high-level and the low-level plants. The high-level 
plant is the same as Wallich’s 1045 from Nepal, but there is no evidence 
to show that the low-level Darjeeling plant occurs in Kumaon and 
Western Nepal. 
There is little doubt as to the plant on which Wallich based his des- 
cription and figure. The figure ^undoubtedly represents the high-level 
plant with a short broad purplish perianth, with ovate subretuse lobes 
and is 1045 A in Wallieh’s collection in the Calcutta Herbarium. (We 
should note here that one marked character of the low-level Darjeeling 
plant and of D. odora Don, the first species of Buchanan- Hamilton 
is the narrow acute lobes of a whitish perianth and that these two species 
are in our opinion distinct from one another.) In the description Wallich 
refers to the perianth-lobes thus : — “ laciniis ovatis subretusis vel lanceo- 
latis acutis” — which may be intended to include both the western 
species. When later he obtained Sylhet material, he labelled it “ 1045 B 
latifolia. Wall, an distineta spec.?” showing that his first plant did not 
match in his opinion the later arrivals. It should moreover be noted that 
Wallich did not recognise that his plant was new as he identified it, 
though with doubt, as D . cannahina Lousr. (which is Wikstrcemia indica 
C. A. Mey.). He points out that Loureiro’s description gives opposite 
leaves (hence his doubt), and also that the Nepal plant comes extremely 
near to Daphne odora Tbunb. 
Wallich’s description and figure were available for Don when hepub- 
lished his Prodromus in 1825. Relying on Buchanan-Hamilton’s speci- 
mens and notes, Don made two species. Buchanan-Hamilton was a care- 
ful and accurate observer and in his notes he had attached the manuscript 
names of D. papyrifera and D. Dholua to the two plants. Don consi- 
dered that the first was equivalent to the D. odorec Thunb. The dis- 
