Part 7 - Tsari Sama pilgrimage area and botanical observations near Langong

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SUMMARY:
The diarist notes bodies with bows left beside them and observes alpine flora on nearby snow slopes and streambeds. Accompanied by Langong coolies, they visit the Tsari Sama (Sarpa) pilgrimage area, finding it rich in Primula, Rhododendron, and a new white-flowered Daphne near the pass to Lopa territory. Trashiyang is mentioned as the starting and finishing point of the pilgrimage.

CONTENT:
Beside each body, the owner's bow had been stuck in the ground. All arrows had been taken away, but all their other possessions seemed to have been left intact, even to their meagre rations of food. Near here, at the top of the snow slopes, were vertical cliffs. Tucked away in dust-dry pockets, completely sheltered from rain, were fine clumps of P. littledalei.

A little lower down, at 14,000', the first Meconopsis simplicifolia were coming into flower. Beside this, P. chamaethauma was in flower, and on a steep bank just above this, a little creeping Lonicera, only an inch or two off the ground, showed its yellow flowers. Some of the open swampy flats held masses of a fine Allium (No. ). On stony beds beside streams grow P. macrophylla v. macrocarpa.

There remained, near Langong, one area to visit, that was Tsari Sama. This is a place of pilgrimage, called Tsari Sama or Sarpa—the new Tsari—to distinguish it from the better-known, more important Tsari Chikchar. The Langong coolies were not anxious to go round the pilgrimage, for which I could not blame them. However, they took me, and it was a most interesting trip. As at the Lo La, there is in Tsari Sama a fairly extensive, reasonably open flat bit of country, just north of the immediate Himalayas, gradually rising to a steep rocky ridge. The whole of this area was very rich in flora. This, to a certain extent, can, I think, be put down to the fact that no yaks are kept here in the summer. None of the dwarf rhodos were now in flower, and R. campylogynum (5560), R. trichocladum (5555), R. glaucum (5565). Also 5568.

A Primula not seen elsewhere, P. Kingii covered acres of open ground with its deep wine-coloured blooms, P. laeta, a glorified form of P. Roylei. Primula, P. gracilipes.

Perhaps the most interesting Rhododendron was 5571 (yellow, red spots). Growing among rocks just below the ridge before reaching the pass to Lopa territory, we came across a fine large, white-flowered new Daphne. No seeds.

At Trashiyang, the starting and finishing point of the pilgrimage,