School and/or born in Landour (see John Birch, below). Of late, their descendants have been deeming a dekko worthwhile. Nowadays, many young Americans on gap years or on exchange programs spend time learning Hindi at the popular Landour Language School, which was founded in the late 19th century to teach newly arrived missionaries. Another durable reminder of the American connection is the ubiquitous Landour Community Cookbook (1st formal edition: 1938; informal stencil copies since c. 1900) though the Landour Community Center—once the locus of Anglo-American community life—is itself moribund. A half-dozen bakers in Landour still offer various breads, cookies/biscuits and cakes from 'The Cookbook', though with the rise of packaged foods and the departure of most missionaries, the bakeries are a pale shadow of their former selves. Landour was also one of the first places in India where an American classic such as peanut butter was made commercially; Plausibly, a number of houses in Landour have American (rather than British) names, among them Aloha, Hollywood and Roanoke. Ecology and environment Landour is for the most part (unlike largely deforested Mussoorie) carpeted by old-growth forests of deodar cedar, Himalayan oak, chir pine, blue pine, West Himalayan fir, Himalayan maple, rhododendron, Himalayan manna ash and other tree species. Landour's north-facing slopes have more deodar and fir than other species; the south-facing slopes have more oak than other species. Pines are at lower elevations than deodar and fir, true to form. Among introduced species, the adaptable Platycladus (Hindi: morpankhi) does well, and Oriental plane (Hindi: chinar) too are seen. A logging ban has long been in place in the reserved forests around Landour, and the ban is reasonably well enforced. Landour offers striking views of the Garhwal Himalaya, with a wide vista of up to visible on a clear day. The visible massifs and peaks include (West to East) Swargarohini, Bandarpunch, Yamunotri, Jaonli, Gangotri, Srikanta, Kedarnath, Satopanth, Chaukhamba (Badrinath) and even Nanda Devi. At its closest point, Tibet is about away as the crow flies; it is through Landour that Heinrich Harrer escaped to Tibet during World War II after breaking out of a British internment camp in Dehradun. Birdlife is outstanding in its breadth of species; over 350 species may comfortably be seen at various elevations over the course of the year, including both endemic species and migratory species from Tibet, Central Asia and Siberia. Quite a few endemic species of pheasants