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LSH/1/1/6/1/148 · Part · 1938-10-16
Part of The Ludlow & Sherriff Collection

SUMMARY:
Lists live plants to be sent by KLM freight to London and the R.B.G. Edinburgh, noting a large quantity of roots, bulbs, and tubers collected. Describes severe weather at Chumbumbu La and successful but difficult seed collecting trips from Langong to the Chiniung La, with plans to march to Migyitun.

CONTENT:
75 Live Plants Collected
Chumbumbu La Oct 17 P. chionantha 6609 P. elizabethae 6610
mec. violacea 6611.

...the live plants wanted, which are now: 1 small plant Pedicularis, 1 small Primula Aliciae, 1 Elizabethae (Lola) 2 Tsariensis (Lola) 1 Rowlei (Lola) & laeta (Lola) 1 ? Clutterbuckii (Lola) 1 Boothii (Lola) 1 yellow Pet. Sect. (Lola) 1 big plant Tsariensis (Lola) 1 yellow Pet sect (Tsari Sama) 1 yellow Pet sect (Chumbumbu La) 1 Elizabethae (Chumbumbu La). All these are at the moment timed to arrive in London on the 12th Dec, & in the R.B.G. Edinburgh on early morning of 13th! Ludlow & Taylor also have a good bundle of roots too, & altogether we have far more roots, bulbs & tubers than ever brought back before. So I hope we get them successfully home this time. I intend to send all by KLM freight, & shudder at the thought of how much they will cost.

17th October. Langong. Rain all night & day. Very cold indeed on the Chumbumbu La, in fact everywhere. Today was a repetition of yesterday, really beastly weather, a strong wind driving rain & sleet. We got a few seed of P. Elizabethae 6610, roots of it & of the Pet. Primula & also seeds of the Primula aff. Clutterbuckii, which I did not expect. Also a few of Omphalogramma brachysiphon 3952. The others I have taken as these are probably nearly all O. minus, with perhaps a small mixture of O. brachysiphon. So cold & beastly up the last camp, that as we were back by 12.30, we packed up at once & came on here, arriving at 4.0pm. No sign of rain stopping, in fact the locals say this is a very wet month, rain below & snow on the hills. We thus save a day, & tomorrow I must go up to the Chiniung La to finish off the Langong collecting.

18th October. Halt. Heavy rain all night & all today. Tsongpen & I went up to the Chiniung La, making an early start. Snow was everywhere above about 13500 & nearly a foot deep on the Pass. However we did better than I expected, & got some of all the seeds we were for except the little dwarf Lonicera, which had dropped its seed & was hardly to be seen. P. macrocarpa had very few seed, nearly every capsule was blind. And so now I have finished all seed collecting from flowers seen this year. The rest of our march is either over new ground, or over the old 1936 ground. But there can be little but Rhododendrons with any seed left. All seems fixed for our march to Migyitun on the 20th, rather to my surprise. At present I cannot make out the route, but

LSH/1/1/7/1/3 · Part · 1940-05-24
Part of The Ludlow & Sherriff Collection

SUMMARY:
The diarist describes a difficult crossing of the Chubumbu La in mist, rain, and snow, followed by notable finds of Primula species and hybrids on the southern slopes. They also note a later visit to the Chimi La, where melting snow revealed several bodies of Lhopas from the previous autumn.

CONTENT:
In profusion had just been uncovered by melting snow, and seed capsules were still full of good seed. On the edge of the Abies forest, Omphalogramma minus was seen, while on very damp swampy slopes, O. brachysiphon was again found. As before, the flowers of this were mostly 5-partite, though a small percentage had six segments. On June 7th, I crossed the Chubumbu La (13,900'), the last 1,000 ft of which was deep in snow on the North side. The South face, however, was clear except for piles of avalanche snow 1,000' down the very steep slopes. It was a beastly day of driving mist and rain, over cold conditions which we had on every single Himalayan Pass this year, with the solitary exception of one fine morning on the Ka La in April. However, I was soon compensated for this. We took a last breather behind a rock on the summit before plunging down the southern slopes, and a compass bearing to keep us right as there was no path visible. Almost at once, we saw a mass of golden yellow Primulas. This proved to be the same as found south of the Do La in Ap at 11,500'; but here it was with proper habitat. This has now been named P. chionogenes. With it was also another Petiolarid Primula - P. tsariensis, and occasionally these two had hybridized and produced a queer but pretty Primula, the colour of which was about halfway between golden yellow and blue-violet. These covered the steep, slippery slopes for 500 ft, where their place was taken by equally large numbers of P. elizabethae, one of the most magnificent of Primulas. Among other Primulas found here were P. pudibunda, P. firma, P. normandiana, P. aff. clutterbuckii (3937), P. dickieana var. pantlingii, and P. barbatula.

The next Pass visited was only a few miles further East - the Chimi La, of 15,000'. Here again, snow lay deep on the North face, the last 1,000' of the N face, but it was melting fast, and we came across several bodies of Lhopas who had been overcome by bad weather the previous Autumn. I was surprised to find that