Unlike many other large geographical areas, India is remarkable for having no distinctive botanical features peculiar to itself. It differs conspicuously in this respect from such countries as Australia or South Africa. Its vegetation is in point of fact of a composite character, and is constituted by the meeting and more or less blending of adjoining floras,--those of Persia and the south-eastern Mediterranean area to the north-west, of Siberia to the north, of China to the east, and of Malaya to the south-east. Regarded broadly, four tolerably distinct types present themselves.
1. The upper levels of the Himalayas slope northwards gradually to the Tibetan uplands, over which the Siberian temperate vegetation ranges. This is part of the great temperate flora which, with locally individualized species, but often with identical genera, ranges over the whole of the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere. In the western Himalayas this upland flora is marked by a strong admixture of European species, such as the columbine (_Aquilegia_) and hawthorn (_Crataegus Oxyacantha_). These disappear rapidly eastward, and are scarcely found beyond Kumaon. The base of the Himalayas is occupied by a narrow belt forming an extreme north-western extension of the Malayan type described below. Above that there is a rich temperate flora which in the eastern chain may be regarded as forming an extension of that of northern China, gradually assuming westwards more and more of a European type. _Magnolia_, _Aucuba_, _Abelia_ and _Skimmia_ may be mentioned as examples of Chinese genera found in the eastern Himalayas, and the tea-tree grows wild in Assam. The same coniferous trees are common to both parts of the range. _Pinus longifolia_ extends to the Hindu-Kush; _P. excelsa_ is found universally except in Sikkim, and has its European analogue in _P. Peuce_, found in the mountains of Greece. _Abies smithiana_ extends into Afghanistan; _Abies webbiana_ forms dense forests at altitudes of 8000 to 12,000 ft., and ranges from Bhutan to Kashmir; several junipers and the common yew (_Taxus baccata_) also occur. The deodar (_Cedrus Deodara_), which is indigenous to the mountains of Afghanistan and the north-west Himalaya, is nearly allied to the Atlantic cedar and to the cedar of Lebanon, a form of which is found in Cyprus. A notable further instance of the connexion of the western Himalayan flora with that of Europe is the holm oak (_Quercus Ilex_), which is characteristic of the Mediterranean region.