The region of Sikkim is perhaps the most productive in fleshy fungi of any in the world, both as regards numbers and species, and Eastern Nepal and Khasia yield also an abundant harvest. The forms are for the most part European, though the species are scarcely ever quite identical. The dimensions of many are truly gigantic, and many species afford abundant food to the natives. Mixed with European forms a few more decidedly tropical occur, and amongst those of East Nepal is a _Lentinus_ which has the curious property of staining every thing which touches it of a deep rhubarb yellow, and is not exceeded in magnificence by any tropical species. The _Polypori_ are often identical with those of Java, Ceylon, and the Philippine Isles, and the curious _Trichocoma paradoxum_ which was first found by Junghuhn in Java, and very recently by Dr. Harvey in Ceylon, occurs abundantly on the decayed trunks of laurels, as it does in South Carolina. The curious genus _Mitremyces_ also is scattered here and there, though not under the American form, but that which occurs in Java. Though _Hymenomycetes_ are so abundant, the _Discomycetes_ and _Ascomycetes_ are comparatively rare, and very few species indeed of _Sphoeria_ were gathered. One curious matter is, that amongst the very extensive collections which have been made there is scarcely a single new genus. The species moreover in Sikkim are quite different, except in the case of some more or less cosmopolite species from those of Eastern Nepal and Khasia: scarcely a single _Lactarius_ or _Cortinarius_ for instance occurs in Sikkim, though there are several in Khasia. The genus _Boletus_ through the whole district assumes the most magnificent forms, which are generally very different from anything in Europe. APPENDIX C.* [The tables referred to, at v. i. chapter ii, as under Appendix C., will be found under Appendix A.] ON THE SOILS OF SIKKIM. There is little variety in the soil throughout Sikkim, and, as far as vegetation is concerned, it may be divided into vegetable mould and stiff clay--each, as they usually occur, remarkably characteristic in composition of such soils. Bog-earth is very rare, nor did I find peat at any elevation. The clay is uniformly of great tenacity, and is, I believe, wholly due to the effect of the atmosphere on crumbling gneiss and other rocks. It makes excellent bricks, is tenacious, seldom friable, and sometimes accumulated in beds fourteen feet thick, although more generally only about two feet. In certain localities, beds or narrow seams of pure felspathic clay and layers of vegetable matter occur in it, probably wholly due to local causes. An analysis of that near Dorjiling gives about 30 per cent. of alumina, the rest being silica, and a fraction of oxide of iron. Lime is wholly unknown as a constituent of the soil, and only occasionally seen as a stalactitic deposit from a few springs.