Talk:Rohmoo Lepcha 57 (1912)
More actions
Discussion for: Rohmoo Lepcha 57 (1912) • View • Links • Related changes
Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
Evidentiary scope
The label gives the locality Lingmuthang, the altitude 10.000 (10,000 feet), the date 12/9/12 and the number 57, and a later pencil hand has added the word Hemp. beside the locality line. That word is a name for the plant, not a note on how it grew. The label does not say whether the plant was sown, tended, volunteer or wild, and it records no use. The accession is classified Unknown. It documents Cannabis in the Chumbi Valley at about 3,048 m in September 1912, and it shows no stand and no living holding. No conservation priority is assigned.
Georeferencing
RBGE and GBIF give the country as India and no locality at all. The label's Lingmuthang is in the Chumbi Valley, which is Tibetan, so this accession is filed under China.
The reading rests on the collector's own labels of the same season. Kew holds Primula smithiana as K006559437, R. Lepcha 64 of August 1912, whose label reads Lingmuthang, Chumbi Valley, East Himalaya (GBIF 5843846221). Harvard holds Pedicularis longiflora var. tubiformis as barcode 02644635, R. Lepcha 51 of 1912, whose label reads Lingmuthang, above Chumbi (GBIF 5886431835). Those numbers sit either side of this sheet's 57. The Natural History Museum places its own Lingmathang, Chumbi sheets of 1942 and 1943 in Xizang, China.
The Chumbi Valley is in the southern Tibet Autonomous Region of China, between Bhutan on the east and Sikkim on the west. Its floor lies at about 9,500 feet (Encyclopaedia Britannica). The Pitt Rivers Museum's Tibet album carries a 1936 photograph captioned Lingmathang, Chumbi Valley (Tibet Album BMR.86.1.66.3). The infobox therefore gives country China, province Tibet and locality Lingmuthang, with the label's altitude converted to metres. No district is entered in the infobox.
A second reading is possible, that the name belongs to a Sikkimese place of similar sound. Nothing found supports it. The two sibling labels are explicit, so this accession follows them.
OpenStreetMap maps a place called 林马塘 (Linmatang) on the river above Yatung, in Chomodoi township of Yadong County (node 13310042200, 27.527, 88.975). The name matches Lingmathang in sound, and the place lies where other labels put it: a Kew sheet of the 1921 Everest expedition was gathered in the Chumbi Valley between Lingmatang and Phari (GBIF 4909611774), and Phari lies 28 km further up the valley. SRTM gives 3,399 m at the node, within 50 m of the 11,000 feet (3,353 m) on the Natural History Museum's two Lingmathang sheets (GBIF 1055984747, GBIF 1055470409). The museum gives those two sheets points 15 km apart, 27.5, 89.0 and 27.407, 88.907, with no accuracy stated, and neither is used; the first lies 3.9 km from the node. The point 27.53, 88.98 is the node rounded to two decimals. It stands for the place, not the spot where the plant was gathered. This label's 10,000 feet (3,048 m) is about 350 m below the node: the valley falls to that height some 5 to 6 km down towards Yatung, and the uncertainty takes that stretch in. An earlier version of this note gave no point because the label was taken to name no stage of the valley. Basis: settlement point. Uncertainty: about 6 km.
Editorial treatment
The label spells the collector Rohmoo Lepcha; RBGE's catalogue spells him Lepcha, Rhomoo and RBGE's own biographical note uses Rhomoo. The title and the collector field follow the label. The name is kept whole instead of being split into a surname and initials, as Keshava Nand 312 (1890) is.
No accession here has been filed under China before this one, so Browse by country/China is created with it. The country grid on Browse by country builds itself from the accessions and needs no edit.
The altitude is written 10.000 on the label, with a full stop as the thousands separator. It is read as 10,000 feet, which is 3,048 m and consistent with the valley's floor at about 9,500 feet.
Source citations remain in the article. Éloise 04:44, 18 September 2026 (+07)