In the mountains of Peru we find such characteristic northern genera as Draba, Alchemilla, Saxifraga, Valeriana, Gentiana and Bartsia.
On its western shores there are some twenty, such as Saxifraga umbrosa, Erica mediterranea and Arbutus unedo, which are not found in Britain at all.
Of four genera which Hooker singles out as the largest in Sikkim, in China Corydalis has 76 species, Saxifraga 58, Pedicularis 129, and Primula 77.
The herbaceous vegetation does not differ greatly, generically, from that of the east, and many species of Primulaceae, Ranunculaceae, Cruciferae, Labiatae and Scrophulariaceae occur; balsams abound, also beautiful forms of Campanulaceae, Gentiana, Meconopsis, Saxifraga and many others.
In Saxifraga umbrosa (London-pride) and in the horse-chestnut we meet with a raceme of scorpioid cymes; in sea-pink, a capitulum of contracted scorpioid cymes (often called a glomerulus); in laurustinus, a compound umbel of dichasial cymes; a scorpioid cyme of capitula in Vernonia scorpioides.