many new and beautiful kinds of rhododendrons, and a variety of
European genera,* [_Deutzia, Saxifraga caliata, Thalictrum,
Euphorbia,_ yellow violet, _Labiatae, Androsace, Leguminosae,
Coriaria, Delphinium,_ currant, _Umbelliferae,_ primrose, _Anemone,
Convallaria, Roscoea, Mitella, Herminium, Drosera.] which (as I have
elsewhere noticed) are either wholly absent from the damper ranges
of Dorjiling, or found there several thousand feet higher up. On the
hill above Choongtam village, I gathered, at 5000 to 6000 feet,
_Rhododendron arboreum_ and _Dalhousiae,_ which do not generally grow
at Dorjiling below 7,500 feet.* [I collected here ten kinds of
rhododendron, which, however, are not the social plants that they
become at greater elevations. Still, in the delicacy and beauty of
their flowers, four of them, perhaps, excel any others; they are, _R.
Aucklandii,_ whose flowers are five inches and a half in diameter;
_R. Maddeni, R. Dalhousiae,_ and _R. Edgeworthii,_ all white-flowered
bushes, of which the two first rise to the height of small trees.]
The yew appears at 7000 feet, whilst, on the outer ranges (as on
Tonglo), it is only found at 9,500 to 10,000 feet; and whereas on
Tonglo it forms an immense tall tree, with long sparse branches and
slender drooping twigs, growing amongst gigantic magnolias and oaks,
at Choongtam it is small and rigid, and much resembling in appearance
our churchyard yew.* [The yew spreads east from Kashmir to the Assam
Himalaya and the Khasia mountains; and the Japan, Philippine Island,
Mexican, and other North American yews, belong to the same
widely-diffused species. In the Khasia (its most southern limit) it
is found as low as 5000 feet above the sea-level.] At 8000 feet the
_Abies Brunoniana_ is found; a tree quite unknown further south; but
neither the larch nor the _Albies Smithiana_ (Khutrow) accompanied
it, they being confined to still more northern regions.