being, though dark-coloured and lean, tender, sweet,
and short-fibred. Birds were scarce, with the exception
of alpine pigeons, red-legged crows, and the
homed pheasant. The vegetation in the neighbourhood
of Lamteng is European and North American ; that is
to say, it unites the boreal and temperate floras of the
east and west hemispheres ; presenting also a few
features peculiar to Asia. This is a subject of very
great importance in physical geography ; as a country
combining the botanical characters of several others,
affords materials for tracing the direction in which
genera and species have migrated, the causes that
favour their migrations, and the laws that determine
the types or forms of one region, which represent those
of another. Sikkim is, geographically, peculiarly well
situated for investigations of this kind, being centrically
placed, whether as regards south-eastern Asia or the
Himalayan chain. Again, the Lachen valley at this
spot is nearly equi-distant from the tropical forests of
the Terai and the sterile mountains of Tibet, for which
reason representatives both of the dry Asiatic and
Siberian, and of the humid Malayan floras meet there.
The mean temperature of Lamteng (about 50°) is
that of the isothermal which passes through Britain
in lat. 52°, cutting the parallel of 45° in Siberia (due
north of Lamteng itself), descending to lat. 42° on thé
east coast of Asia, ascending to lat. 48° on the west
of America, and descending to that of New York
in the United States. I shall take for comparison
the flora of 7000 to 10,000 feet ; of the mean temperature,
namely, between 53° and 43°, the isothermal lines
corresponding to which embrace, at the level of the
sea, a space varying from three to twelve degrees of
latitude.* At first it appears incredible that so limited
an area should present nearly all the types of the flora
of the north temperate zone ; not only, however, is this
the case, but space is also found for the intercalation
of types of a Malayan flora, otherwise wholly foreign to
the north temperate region.
A few examples will show this. Amongst trees the
Conifers are conspicuous at Lamteng, and all are of
genera typical both of Europe and North America.;
namely, silver fir, spruce, larch, juniper, and yew:
there are also species of birch, alder, ash, apple, oak,
willow, cherry, bird-cherry, mountain-ash, thorn, walnut,
hazel, maple, poplar, ivy, holly, andromeda, rhamnus.
Of buslies; rose, berberry, bramble, rhododendron,
elder, cornel, willow, honeysuckle, currant, &c. Herbaceous
plants are far too numerous to be enumerated,
as a list would include most of the common genera of
European and North American plants.
Of North American genera, not found in, Europe,
were Buddleia, Magnolia, Sassafras, Hydrangea, Aralia,
Panax, Trillium. The absence of heaths is also equally
a feature in the flora of North America. The Japanese
and Chinese floras are represented in Sikkim by
Camellia, Deutzia, Aucuba, Hydrangea, Skimmia, and
Enkianthus. The Malayan by Magnolias, vacciniums,
rhododendrons, and many genera of orchids.
* On the west coast of Europe, where the distance between these
isothermal lines is greatest, this belt extends almost from Stockholm and
the Shetlands to Paris.