Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/277

Rh the thirty-eighth parallel, at a time when seventy-six kinds of flowers were blooming, which, however, remained uninjured by the cold, so accustomed are the plants of Kan-su to the severity of its climate. The slightest drought, on the other hand, is far more injurious to them. Rain fell on twenty-two days in May, but as it was not continuous, it was not enough for the herbaceous plants which require great moisture. We noticed this particularly on the exposed side of mountains, and in the plain to the north-east of the Chagrin-gol, where the year before, in the end of June, the flowers were more abundant and brilliant.

This only proves how elastic is the nature of these plants, and how capable they are of adapting themselves to the climate. I have myself taken up by the root the yellow alpine poppy (Papaver alpinum) when the earth has been so hard frozen that I could hardly cut into it with my knife, yet the plant was uninjured, whereas it would perish if it were not for the incessant rains.

We took leave of the highlands of Kan su, having experienced to the very last their inclement, unsettled climate; still the variety and abundance of the scientific harvest that we reaped there in the vegetable and animal kingdoms make us regard our stay in that region as the best time of our whole enterprise.