It is extremely difficult to give within the limits of this narrative any idea of the Khasia flora, which is, in extent and number of fine plants, the richest in India, and probably in all Asia. We collected upwards of 2000 flowering plants within ten miles of the station of Churra, besides 150 ferns, and a profusion of mosses, lichens, and fungi. This extraordinary exuberance of species is not so much attributable to the elevation, for the whole Sikkim Himalaya (three times more elevated) does not contain 500 more flowering plants, and far fewer ferns, etc.; but to the variety of exposures; namely, 1. the Jheels, 2. the tropical jungles, both in deep, hot, and wet valleys, and on drier slopes; 3. the rocks; 4. the bleak table-lands and stony soils; 5. the moor-like uplands, naked and exposed, where many species and genera appear at 5000 to 6000 feet, which are not found on the outer ranges of Sikkim under 10,000.* [As _Thalictrum, Anemone,_ primrose, cowslip, _Tofieldia,_ Yew, Pine, Saxifrage, _Delphinium, Pedicularis._] In fact, strange as it may appear, owing to this last cause, the temperate flora descends fully 4000 feet lower in the latitude of Khasia (25 degrees N.) than in that of Sikkim (27 degrees N.), though the former is two degrees nearer the equator. The _Pandanus_ alone forms a conspicuous feature in the immediate vicinity of Churra; while the small woods about Mamloo, Moosmai, and the coal-pits, are composed of _Symplocos,_ laurels, brambles, and jasmines, mixed with small oaks and _Photinia,_ and many tropical genera of trees and shrubs. _Orchideae_ are, perhaps, the largest natural order in the Khasia, where fully 250 kinds grow, chiefly on trees and rocks, but many are terrestrial, inhabiting damp woods and grassy slopes. I doubt whether in any other part of the globe the species of orchids outnumber those of any other natural order, or form so large a proportion of the flora. Balsams are next in relative abundance (about twenty-five), both tropical and temperate kinds, of great beauty and variety in colour, form, and size of blossom. Palms amount to fourteen, of which the _Chamaerops_ and _Arenga_ are the only genera not found in Sikkim. Of bamboos there are also fifteen, and of other grasses 150, which is an immense proportion, considering that the Indian flora (including those of Ceylon, Kashmir, and all the Himalaya), hardly contains 400. _Scitamineae_ also are abundant, and extremely beautiful; we collected thirty-seven kinds.