SIR RICHARD STRACHEY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO INDIAN BOTANY. MO TER EDITOR
Or Tug "SPICOTLTOR.") Six,—The life of the late General Sir Richard Strachey was so full of varied and distinguished achievement that the comprehensive survey of his career given in the Times of. the 13th inst. included only a general allusion to his contributions to botanical knowledge. Having paid some attention to this interesting subject, I should be glad to be permitted to supple- ment for the information of your readers this portion of the memoir. Of the many scientific subjects which occupied Sir R. Strachey's attention, in addition to those more directly con- cerned with his official duties iu India, that of botany was one in which he took a very special interest, and the results of his discoveries, more especially in Kumaon and in the adjacent portions of Garhwall and Tibet, form a very interesting and valuable chapter of Indian botanical research.
Very little was known regarding the flora of Kumaon until about sixty years ago, when, as a Subaltern of the Royal Engineers, he commenced his scientific survey of the mountain ranges westward of Nepal, and afterwards, in 1848, undertook an extensive journey with Mr. J. E. Winterbottom to. the Rakas-bil and Manasarowar Lakes in Tibet. It was on the latter occasion that a large proportion of the plants contained in what is known as the "Strachey and Winterbottom Her- barium " was collected. Starting from the plain of Rohilkhand at an elevation of about a thousand feet above sea-level, a north-easterly route was taken across the snowy ranges, and terminating on the Tibetan plateau at an altitude of between fourteen and fifteen thousand feet on the upper course of the river Sutlej. A detailed. account by Sir Richard Strachey of this very interesting journey will be found in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. XV. (1900). See also Mr. W. B. Hemsley's paper on the "Flora of Tibet or High Asia" published in the Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. XXXV. (19Q2). The herbarium, which contained over two thousand species (including crypt°. gams), was distributed in 1852-53 to the Hookerian Herbarium (now at Kew), the British Museum, the Linnean Society, and to some of the Continental museums. All the specimens were carefully ticketed with notes of the localities and eleva- tion at which they were found. A provisionally named catalogue, prepared by Sir R. Strachey, was printed, and a copy was sent with each distributed set of plants. This . catalogue was afterwards revised, and appeared in 1882 in Atkinson's " Gazetteer of the Himalayan Districts of the Nortb-West Provinces and Oudh" (now known as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh). At the request of Sir Richard Strachey another revised edition was prepared by Mr. J. F. Duthie, formerly Director of the Botanical Survey of Northern India, and was published in 1906 by Messrs. Lovell Reeve and Co. It contains the whole of the Strachey and Winter- bottom collections, with the nomenclature of the species brought up to date in accordance with Sir Joseph Hooker's "Flora of British India." It also includes many additional species discovered subsequently by various collectors.
Of the large number of new species and varieties discovered by Sir R. Strachey, no less than thirty-two bear his name. One of these, Stracheya tibetica, representing a distinct and monotypic genus, was found by him in the Guge Valley, within the borders of Tibet, at an elevation of fifteen thousand feet. But perhaps the most interesting novelty, from a botanical point of view, was a very minute plant called Circeaster agrestis, which, owing to the extreme simplicity of its floral structure, has presented much difficulty in• the attempts of botanists to determine its true affinity; and even now it occupies only a provisional and somewhat doubtful position as a member of the natural order Chloranthaceae. It was found by Sir R. Strachey in the Riilam Valley at about eight thousand feet above the sea, and has since been collected
in North China.—I am, Sir, &c., B.
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