Part 111 - Halt at Natrampa and plant collecting near Lung road

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SUMMARY:
Route described from the right bank past Dotrang to Natrampa, with notes on dense, Bhutan-like jungle and a good camp site. At Natrampa they halt and collect several notable plants, including rhododendrons, a yellow primula, Paraquilegia, and Diapensia, and later find unusual rhododendrons near a cascade along the Lung road.

CONTENT:
The road keeps pretty high over the Right bank, up and down, till about mile 3, when it is 800 ft or so above the valley bed. Here a ridge is crossed, where the path used to go down a ladder. Two miles further on a fair sized village is passed, called Dotrang. The path keeps below this, crosses a small side stream, and leads on more or less level for a while, then down hill to Natrampa. A good Camping Ground just beyond. The jungle gradually becomes thicker and more wet zone-like, till here it is just like Bhutan, on the North face, but dry, except for small watercourses, mostly high falls, where vegetation is dense. On Left bank at a waterfall I saw rhododendron 1346 and a yellow sikkimensis primula 1348, while looking for these found a Paraquilegia 1350 in flower. Lumsden found one or two rhododendrons, and Pinko and Tsongpen came in with a lovely mass of rhododendrons and a Diapensia, from the North face cliff. There is any amount of stuff here, so we stop a day.

27th April. Halt at Natrampa. A really good day. We went out along the Lung road to the first cascade, about a mile downstream. There we found a most unusual red rhododendron 1352, a beautiful mauve one 1354, and an unusual yellow one.