Note 277 — Chapter XXIV

Besides those before mentioned, there were Fescue-grass (Festuca ovina of Scotland), a strong-scented silky wormwood (Artemisia), and round tufts of Oxytropis chiliophylla, a kind of Astralagus that inhabits eastern and western Tibet; this alone was green: it formed great circles on the ground, the centre decaying, and the annual shoots growing outwards, and thus constantly enlarging the circle. A woolly Leontopodium, Androsace, and some other plants assumed nearly the same mode of growth. The rest of the vegetation consisted of a Sedum, Nardostachys Jatamansi, Meconopsis horridula, a slender Androsace, Gnaphalium, Stipa, Salvia, Draba, Pedicularis, Potentilla or Sibbaldia, Gentiana and Erigeron alpinus of Scotland. All these grow nearly up to 18,000 feet.