I had often wondered if there were any place in the East where flowers grow in the same profusion as in Europe--in England, or in Switzerland. The nearest approach I had seen was in the plateau of the Southern Shan States, at about 4,000 feet, where the flora is very homelike. But the ground is not _carpeted_; one could tread without crushing a blossom. Flowers are plentiful, too, on the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and on the hills on the Siamese side of the Tennasserim frontier, but I had seen nothing like a field of marsh-marigolds and cuckoo-flowers in May, or a meadow of buttercups and daisies, or a bank of primroses, or a wood carpeted with bluebells, or a hillside with heather, or an Alpine slope with gentians and ranunculus. I had been told that in Persia in springtime the valleys of the Shapur River and the Karun are covered profusely with lilies, also the forests of Manchuria in the neighbourhood of the Great White Mountain; but until I crossed the Jelapla and struck down the valley to Yatung I thought I would have to go West to see such things again. Never was such profusion. Besides the primulas[10]--I counted eight different kinds of them--and gentians and anemones and celandines and wood sorrel and wild strawberries and irises, there were the rhododendrons glowing like coals through the pine forest. As one descended the scenery became more fascinating; the valley narrowed, and the stream was more boisterous. Often the cliffs hung sheer over the water's edge; the rocks were coated with green and yellow moss, which formed a bed for the dwarf rhododendron bushes, now in full flower, white and crimson and cream, and every hue between a dark reddish brown and a light sulphury yellow--not here and there, but everywhere, jostling one another for nooks and crannies in the rock.[11]
[10] Between Gnatong and Gautsa, thirteen different species of primulas are found. They are: _Primula Petiolaris_, _P. glabra_, _P. Sapphirina_, _P. pusilia_, _P. Kingii_, _P. Elwesiana_, _P. Capitata_, _P. Sikkimensis_, _P. Involucra_, _P. Denticulata_, _P. Stuartii_, _P. Soldanelloides_, _P. Stirtonia_.
[11] The species are: _Rhododendron campanulatum_, purple flowers; _R. Fulgens_, scarlet; _R. Hodgsonii_, rose-coloured; _R. Anthopogon_, white; _R. Virgatum_, purple; _R. Nivale_, rose-red; _R. Wightii_, yellow; _R. Falconeri_, cream-coloured; _R. cinndbarinum_, brick-red ('The Gates of Tibet,' Appendix I., J. A. H. Louis).