The climate is no longer stifling and the leeches have disappeared. We miss many beauties of the tropical forest. But, with the vegetation more and more resembling what we are accustomed to in Europe, we are feeling more at home. The path winds through cool and pleasant woods, following the varying contour of the mountain-sides. We are no longer oppressed by the strangeness of the life around us. At almost every turn we come across something new yet not wholly unfamiliar. And standing out especially in our memory of this region will be the sight of a gigantic lily rearing itself ten feet high in the forest, and as pure in its perfect whiteness as if it had been grown in a garden. It is the Lilium giganteum, and it has fourteen flowers on a single stalk and each 4 1/2 inches long and the same across.
We still love most of all the white violets we have as children picked in an English wood, and even this great white lily will never supplant them in our affections. But the sight of that glorious plant rising proudly from amidst the greenery of its forest setting will be for us more than any picture. And its being "wild" has the same fascination for us that a flower that is "wild," and not garden grown, has for a child. In a florist's shop we may see lilies even more beautiful than this, but the enjoyment we get from seeing the florist's production bears no comparison whatever with the enjoyment we get from seeing this lily in a distant Himalayan forest where not so many white men ever go. We often have experiences which perceptibly age us. But this is one of those experiences which most certainly make us younger. We are once again children finding flowers in a wood.
As we proceed upward the valley opens out, the mountains recede and are less steep. They are also less wooded, their slopes become more covered with grass, and the river, no longer a raging torrent, now meanders in a broad bed. The great peaks are somewhere close by, but we do not see the highest, and for the Himalaya the scenery is somewhat tame. But the number of herbaceous plants is great. A complete record of them would include most of the common genera of Europe and North America. Among them are purple, yellow, pink, and white primulas, golden potentillas, gentians of deepest azure, delicate anemones, speedwells, fritillaries, oxalis, balsams, and ranunculus. One special treasure of this part is a great red rose (Rosa macrophylla), one of the most beautiful of Himalayan plants whose single blossoms are as large as the palm of the hand. With these plants from the temperate zone are mixed the far outliers of the tropical genera—orchids, begonias, and others—whose ascent to these high regions has been favoured by the great summer heat and moisture.
We are now in the region of the primulas for which (besides its orchids and rhododendrons) Sikkim is famous. Sikkim may indeed be called the headquarters of the Indian primroses, and many species are found there which appear to occur nowhere else. There are from thirty to forty species, the majority growing at altitudes from 12,000 to 15,000 feet, two or three only being found below 10,000 feet, and two or three as high as 16,000 to 17,000 feet. The best known is the Primula sikkimensis, which grows well in England and resembles a gigantic cowslip. It thrills us to see it growing in golden masses in the high valleys in wet boggy places—though the precise colour may be better described as lemon-yellow rather than gold.
The prevailing colour of the primulas is purple, but white, yellow, blue, and pink are also found. The P. denticulata has purple to bright sapphire blue flowers, and great stretches of country are almost blue with the lovely heads of this primrose. Miles of country can be seen literally covered with P. obtusifolia, which has purple flowers and a strong metallic smell. P. Kingii is a lovely plant with flowers of such a dark claret colour that they are almost black. And perhaps the most striking primula is P. Elwesiana, with large solitary deflexed purple flowers.
Poppies also are a feature of the Sikkim vegetation. Near the huts the people cultivate a majestic species near Menconopsis simplicifolia, but it grows in dense clusters 2 or 3 feet high. The flowers vary in diameter from 5 to 7 inches, and are an intensely vivid blue on opening, though they change before fading into purple. M. simplicifolia itself is also found at altitudes from 12,000 to 15,000 feet—a clear light blue species of special beauty, growing as a single flower on a single stem, and now to be seen at both Edinburgh and Kew. Another beautiful poppy is the M. nepalensis, which grows in the central dampest regions of Sikkim at elevations of 10,000 to 11,000 feet and resembles a miniature hollyhock, the flowers being of a pale golden or sulphur-yellow, 2 or 3 inches in diameter and several on a stalk.
As Tangu is approached the valley expands into broad grassy flats, and here at about 13,000 feet the vegetation rapidly diminishes in stature and abundance, and the change in species is very great. Larch, maple, cherry, and spiraea disappear, leaving willows, juniper, stunted birch, silver fir, mountain ash berberries, currant, honeysuckle, azalea, and many rhododendrons. The turfy ground is covered with gentians, potentillas, geraniums, and purple and yellow meconopsis, delphiniums, orchids, saxifrage, campanulas, ranunculus, anemones, primulas (including the magnificent Primula Sikkimensis), and three or four species of ferns. The country being now so much more open, the valley bottom and the mountain-sides glow with purples and yellows of various shades. Not even here, nor indeed anywhere in the Himalaya, do we see that mass and glow of colour we find in California, where wide sheets of meadow-land are ablaze with the purple of the lupins and the gold of the Californian poppy. But for the number of varieties of plants these upper valleys of the Teesta River can scarcely be excelled. As we ascend the mountain-sides above Tangu we find them covered with plants of numerous different kinds, and even at about 14,000 feet Hooker gathered over two hundred plants.
But now we are nearing the limit of plant life. At 17,000 feet the vegetation has ceased to be alpine and has become arctic, and the plants nearest the snow-line are minute primulas, saxifrages, gentians, grasses, sedges, some tufted wormwood, and a dwarf rhododendron, the most alpine of wooded plants.
At the summit of the Donkia Pass Hooker found one flowering plant, the Arenaria rupifragia. The fescue (Festuca ovina), a little fern (Woodsia), and a saussurea ascend very near the summit. A pink-coloured woolly saussurea and Delphinium glaciale are two of the most lofty plants, and are commonly found from 17,500 feet to 18,000 feet. Besides some barren mosses several lichens grow on the top, as Cladonia vermicularis, the yellow Lecidea geographica and the orange L. miniata.
At 18,300 feet Hooker found on one stone only a fine Scottish lichen, a species of gyrophora, the "tripe de roche" of Arctic voyagers and the food of the Canadian hunters. It is also abundant in the Scotch Alps.