Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/287

Rh Androsace on the rocks, Siberian milkwort (Polygala Sibirica), clematis (Clematis æthusæfolia), twining through the bushes at the entrances to ravines, but seldom found on the plain, and on the border of the mountains the rhubarb, likewise found in the tree-belt as high as the alpine region.

The upper limit of the forest zone is 10,000 feet above the sea, the western side of the range being the most densely wooded, and especially the slopes which face the north. The variety of trees, however, is not great. The prevailing kinds are the spruce (Abies obovata?), the poplar (Populus tremula), and willow, interspersed with arborescent juniper (Juniperus communis?), more rarely with the white birch (Betula alba); and, on the eastern side of the mountains, with the pine. All these trees are small and stunted, and can bear no comparison with those of Kan-su.

Amongst bushes in the Ala-shan forests we observed spiræa, white and yellow kurile tea (Potentilla glabra, P. tenuifolia), and hazel (Ostryopsis Davidiana) on the open hillsides facing the south, especially on the eastern side of the mountains, the honeysuckle; the juniper too is to be seen trailing its long branches over the rocks on the outskirts of the mountains.

There is more variety of bushes in the wooded ravines, where we saw syringa (Syringa vulgaris) like the familiar plant of our gardens, a new species of cotoneaster growing on the hillsides; two kinds