Bright colours, sharp clarity, of the Tibetan countryside

Press, 6 September 1980, Page 16

Bright colours, sharp clarity, of the Tibetan countryside

This is the final article in a four-part series on Tibet by MARGARET find PETER WARDLE. Dr Wardle, of the Botany Division of the D.5.1.R., Christchurch, was recently invited to tour Tibet with a gro up of scientists.

During our first day in Tibet, on the drive from Gongga airfield to the capital, Lhasa, we remarked how the landscape of bare, crumbling mountains, wide, gravelly river beds, rocky gorges, and occasional groves of willows and poplars, was remarkably like that- of the Omarama basin in North Otago — except that the scene was repeated through hundreds of kilometres.

Although the scattered bushes and sparse, closelycropped grass on the mountain slopes scarcely seem to make for a botanist’s paradise, a closer look reveals many plants of beauty and interest. The greatest expanse of colour is provided by a shrub growing on stony fans, and as New Zealanders we were intrigued that this shrub, Sophora moorcroftii, is related to our kowhai; not that one would suspect this from the densely crowded, bright blue flowers that conceal the spiny branches.'Another spiny shrub of the pea family, Caragana, with yelloW • flowers flushed red at the base, is even more abundant. A most attractive member of the daphne family, Stellera, produces a new clump of. shoots from ground level each summer, and each shoot, ends in a cluster of white flowers; the outer ones being fully open when the central ones are still dark red buds. Even in the driest coun-

try, there are clumps of iris, with blue flowers like those of the Iris stylosa that is common in Christchurch gardens, and a plant of the arum family, Arisaema, in which each stalk bears a single, bright yellow “petal”. However, the gem of the Tibetan flora is surely Incarvillea younghusbandii, which is, the sole alpine member of the subtropical trumpet-flower family that includes our Tecomanthe speciosa,. a rare and beautiful vine that grows wild only on the Three Kings Islands. The leafy part of this Incarvillea is a small, dark green rosette that is nearly hidden by the six-centi-metre long, pink trumpet flowers, that are quite unlike those of any other alpine plant. We saw a particularly fine group of

these plants on a rocky bluff overlooking the Brahmaputra River, near Shigatse. Not all the colour in the Tibetan landscape is provided by flowers. Whole mountainsides are slashed by strata of purple and red rocks, that have been brought from subterranean depths by the same forces that crumpled the southern rim of Tibet to form the Himalayas. Outcrops of . limestone; show that the Tibetan Plateau once lay beneath the sea, and geologists believe that it is still rising about one centimetre each year. The unique quality of Tibetan scenery also derives from the clear, crisp air in which distant landmarks stand out sharply instead of dissolving into haze, from the sky which spreads an intense blue

from horizon to mountain horizon, and from the starkness of the sunlight that makes shadows deep and sharp, whether they are cast by clouds of a single flower. On moonless nights, the same atmospheric clarity results in a breathtaking blaze of stars — we had never thought that so many stars were visible to the naked eye, nor that the stellar display could extend undimmed to the horizons. Yet, during our stay at Shigatse, one of the notorious Tibetan dust storms suddenly blotted

out visibility in a thick yellow cloud, that after about 15 minutes subsided as quickly as it appeared. Deposits of sand blown from the flood plain of the Brahmaputra River to high on the . mountain slopes north of the valley show that these storms are raised frequently by the southerlies that prevail during summer. Our route traversed four passes with heights between 4800 metres and , 5220 metres (17,400 ft). ' Three, are broad, rolling tablelands reminiscent of the plateau mountains of Central Otago.

The fourth pass, or Kari-la, is more spectacular. It lies between gla-cier-clad mountains that send ice avalanches almost to the road,, and one of the mountains, Noijinkangsang, is no less than 7191 metres (24,000 ft) high. Androsace in the primrose family is the most conspicuous plant on the passes, and forms cushions covered in small white flowers, whereas a true primrose, Primula tibetica, displays pink flowers. Gentiana imodii .has white flowers nearly two centimetres across that

seem -to emerge directly from-the bare soil. Edelweiss and several kinds of yellow-flowered cinquefoil (Potentilla) are also abundant. Since the plants are low-growing, . the botany, here is of the “hands and knees” variety, and . to stand up too quickly is to be reminded of the lack of oxygen by a wave of dizziness. . ’ The scenic highlight of our journey should have been the descent from the Plateau, through a Himalayan gorge, to the hill, country of central Nepal, 4 , but the world’s highest mountains had hidden

their summits in monsoon cloud. Even so, the route itself is spectacular enough, as it descends the gorge of. the Bhote Kosi River from the village of Nyalam at 3800 metres to 1600 metres at the Nepalese border, over a distance of 20 kilometres. As in the Otira Gorge, the road zigzags .down steep, unstable moraines and clings to sheer bluffs, though the descent is nearly four times as great. Dense forest clothes the valley walls below Nyalam, but we did not spend as much time here as we would have liked, because

our timetable had been delayed for a day by rain and .landslides.. However, we remedied this by trekking for eight days in the Helambu district of Nepal, which is botanically very similar. Although we were too late for the famous display of flowering rhododendrons, and in time for the monsoon rains and

concomitant leeches, there was much to interest us: the rhododendron forests themselves, which recall mist-shrouded rata bush - on the Westland moun- r tains; bamboo thickets beneath stands of Himalayan 1 firs; tree trunks clothed, in orchids and ferns;, and expanses of blue and white anemones on grassy sub- . alpine meadows. > ■