Tibet and the Tibetans / by Graham Sandberg. Published under the general literature committee.

  • Graham Sandberg
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Tibet and the Tibetans / by Graham Sandberg. Published under the general literature committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    cliaraeter of the botanic productions of the northern districts if one fact is borne in mind. Of all the plants brought home by Dr. Thorold and gathered at heights exceeding 15^500 feet^ not a single species even in the middle of the summer season grew more than six inches above ground, while the majority rose out of the soil only from f of an inch to 2^ inches.^ Densely tufted and with leaves and blossoms closely packed on the ground is the prevailing habit. These often form sub-globose and hemispheric cushions, as we have seen is the case with the several Arenaria and is especially so for instance in Tliylacos- permcm rupifragum. Both the scanty rainfall and the continuous violence of the daily wind have probably as much to do with the pecu- liar and restricted growth of the flora as has the excessive cold. Another curious characteristic of all these Tibetan plants has yet to be mentioned. Their contracted and scanty appearance above ground is to some extent compensated by the extraordinary size of their roots below. To the meagre and often minute leafage and flowering appa- ratus seen on the surface, there is attached in nearly every example some enormous tuber or a long fleshy tap-root or an extensive system of underground runners, or in the case of the so-called shrubby plants a mass of woody fibres which eventually become exposed and dry up into a wiry tangle on the surface. In the Astragali and Oxytropes of Tibet, though the show above is so trivial, large fleshy appendages penetrate deeply in the soil. Sometimes the rootstock of the tiny plant is ridiculously long and creeping, bearing in its course many small fleshy tubers, as may be observed in one or two species of Carda- mine. Moreover, in those cases where the rootstock is woody with a stout and heavy crown it is generally thickly clothed with the withered petioles and leaf-sheaths of past seasons. The Tibetan species of Anemone and Corydalis are quaint examples of the persistent manner in which the remains of old growths cling to the ancestral stock. Other types of the Tibetan style of root are to be met with in the underground developments belonging to Braya, Megacarpoea, 1 The self-restraint in growth exhibited by Tibetan plants is strikingly ex- emplified in the genus Meconopsis, which is all the more remarkable because that genus is essentially sub-alpine and alpine in its natural distribution, being confined to cold and inclement climates. Thus we find these species of Meconopsis which actually occur in Tibet either stemless or nearly so, while the scapes from the root which bear the flowers are extremely short, fie., from 3 to 6 inches in M. Iiorndula and 2| to 6 inches in M. primulina (Prain). By contrast, however, the members of the genus growing just outside Tibetan limits have tall and even branching stems with lengthy scapes, raches and petioles. So ilf. Nipalensis, found in Nipal at altitudes between 10,000 to 12,000 feet, has stems 4 to 6 feet high ; as also, M. rohusta which bears floral cymes 2 feet long and leaves of 14 inches.