Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/108

86 — wеге most conspicuous. One variety, twelve feet high, and not deciduous in winter, with tough leaves and sweet-scented white blossoms, was particularly fine, and might also be seen in the forests below the alpine belt.

The other characteristic plants of this region are the Caragana jubata (the same species as in the Ala-shan mountains), the yellow kurile tea (Potentilla tenuifolia), spiraæ (Sp. Altaica), and willow (Salix sp.), growing in thick moss (Hypnum sp.) chiefly on the northern slopes. It would be impossible in this brief sketch to do justice to the profusion and variety of the flowering herbs, which now grew in patches among the bushes now covered whole sides of the higher mountains. Amongst the plants we noticed a great many entirely new kinds. The most conspicuous were several kinds of poppy (Papaver), louse-wort (Pedicularis), larkspur (Delphinium), saxifrage (Saxifraga), gentians (Gentiana), Ranunculi, Potentillæ, garlic (Allium), Siberian aster (Aster Sibiricus), Erigeron sp., Saussurea graminifolia, Leontopodium alpinum, Antennaria sp., Androsace sp. In the interstices of the rocks grew different varieties of primroses (Primula), whitlow grass (Draba), fumaria (Corydalis), golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium sp.), stonecrop (Sedum sp.), Isopyrum sp., Arenaria sp.; and among the loose detritus, wolf's-bane (Aconitum sp.), Ligularia sp., Saussurea obvallata, &c. All these herbs and shrubs blossom in the end of June, when the mountains are ablaze with the yellow kurile tea, red,