Bulletin - Summer 1979 - North American Rock Garden Society

Shadows lengthened. We had a fifteenmile ride up river to make camp atLake Krishensar, so we mounted up.But our ponies were old hands atfun and games. "Stumble Bum," asI politely named my pony at first,quickly discovered that I froze to thesaddle every time he lurched, so hegleefully tripped over every rock andlog. Then he tried a new game, "accidentally"leaning against a great boulderand squeezing my leg between hisribs and the hard place. Well, the nexttime he tried that I swung my otherleg and "accidentally" gave him a swiftkick to the jaw. Meanwhile, Barry offeredhis pony a marathon lecture onits unsavory ancestry, and on we wentwith never a respite to look at plantsalong the way, teased and tested atevery river crossing, hill, and pebble.Before nightfall we reached Krishensar(11,500 feet), a large lake atthe base of the mountain we wouldclimb the next day. A young Germancouple, camped near the water, spokehappily about the fishing in the river,where they had caught fine Germanbrown trout. We made camp on a flata few hundred feet below the lake,near where the river emerged. Ourguide went fishing. Barry went looking— and in rock crevices right by ourcamp found Asplenium viride, adelightful, tiny fern with the stems notblack but green. He discovered Aspleniumseptentrionale on a large, solitaryrock in a meadow nearby, the veryfern I had seen in the Colorado Rockiesthe year before.At six the next morning we tooka quick breakfast, left everyone behindbut Ghul, and went for the gold ring.Right away, on the steep, open meadowthat mounded up from Krishensar tonearby Vishensar, we spied the huge,bright yellow flowers of foot-high Geumelatum as well as the most strikingof all potentillas, P. nepalensis, its oneto two foot stems procumbent and tippedwith beautiful crimson blossoms,some variegated to an orange-red. Thenup and up the ponies struggled, noshenanigans today, and at more than13,000 feet we reached the top saddleof the ridge above Lake Vishensar.From the steep climb and the altitude,Ghul had a terrible headache, so Igave him some aspirin and told himto rest before he headed back downto camp with our ponies. Barry, Reuben,and I wished to spend the dayon foot exploring the chips.Along the whole ridge a mantle ofchippings overlay a deep, rough scree.These finely shattered chips had brokendown from the many shaly outcroppingspoking up from the ridges. All of thesehigher outcroppings looked likebrownstone.Right at our feet we noticed padafter pad of Androsace sempervivoidesand A. muscoides. The dark, heavilyflowered mound of Androsace mucronifoliasurprised us with its tinyrosettes.Soon we came upon the Queen ofthe Himalayas, Paraquilegia grandiflora.Right up on the windsweptridge, it grew tightly adpressed to thesurface of chippings and stood barelyone inch high. Most of the seedpodswere green, but we scurried from plantto plant and finally, with diligence,collected a fair supply of ripe ones.Looking at the unexpected abundanceof plants here, we felt overwhelmedto think of all the seed that wouldripen in just two more weeks. Then,knowing that every time we found thisshaly, sandy-red rock we would findP. grandiflora, we explored the northface of a great outcropping anddiscovered several dozen plants (withtremendous taproots) all up and downthe labyrinthine stairsteps of rock. On111