Page:The Journal of Indian Botany.djvu/702

236

The Himalayan range, the highest mountain range of the world, deserves far more attention from the ecological standpoint than it has received. It is given merely a passing notice by such authors as Schimper (10) and Warming (12). This survey of a limited area is given with the hope that it may stimulate the botanists of India to further researches in this most fruitful field.

Sat Tal is in the Kumaon Division, United Provinces, India, at a latitude of 29° 23' north and a longitude of 79° 32' east. It takes its name from the existence some time ago of seven lakes, probably produced by the blocking of the drainage by landsides. Three of these lakes remain, one of them being over 90 and another over 80 feet in depth.

The region included in this study is the drainage basin of these lakes which almost coincides with the Sat Tal estate and has a length from north to south of one mile and a width from east to west of one-half mile. This valley lies just behind the outer range of the Himalayas, the drainage to the south of it going rather directly to the plains. The lowest lake has an altitude of about 4160 ft. and the highest peak, that at the north end of the valley, of 5860 ft. Some of the observations, particularly those related to biotic factors, were made outside the above-mentioned area.

This valley was selected for this study because it is at the altitude in which the prevailing formations of the lower Himalayas meet and because the fact that it is a private estate which has for fifty years been protected from cutting, grazing, and cultivation as well as the fact that it is a depression relatively protected from both hot and cold winds give it the richest flora which the author has seen in any area of similar size in the Himalayas. Something of its actual wealth in species is shown by the fact that it contains about 75 species of trees and 65 species' of shrubs. Great Britain has about 10 kinds of trees, and all Europe only 85 (1).