AD FLORAM INDICAM (BALSAMINEE). 109 
unable to avoid. The position of the bracts must in all cases be 
referred to in order to determine the real condition of the inflo- 
rescence, though not necessarily to find the place of the plant in 
our system; for we are obliged to place a species with two 1- 
flowered axillary peduncles, bracteate at the base, in a different 
section from another with a solitary 2-flowered peduncle, bracteate 
at the ramification, however closely allied they may be in every 
other respect. A more awkward fact still is that both these 
modifications may occur in the same species, sometimes in the 
same specimen. 
An equally perplexing combination of discordant characters is 
afforded by the ramification of the peduncle itself, the inflores- 
cence being racemose, interruptedly so, whorled and corymbose, 
or even umbellate through the reduction of the racemose or verti- 
cillate inflorescence. Numerous examples of several of these 
modifications in one species, or even specimen, may be found in 
the groups Subverticillate, Umbellate, and Racemose. 
10. The foliation may be wholly basal (radical), as in the Sca- 
pigere ; wholly opposite, as in most of the Oppositifolie ; wholly 
alternate, as in most of the Racemose; wholly (or almost) ver- 
ticillate or ternate, as in I. Gviffithii and I. Gardneriana ; opposite 
below and alternate above, as in I. amplexicaulis, I. latifolia, and 
I. Thomsoni ; opposite below and ternately verticillate above, as in 
I. flavida; verticillate in the middle and opposite or alternate 
above and below, аз in J. trilobata, I. salicifolia, and sometimes in 
I. latifolia. I. multiflora and I. trilobata are very puzzling species, 
being sometimes opposite-leaved throughout the whole individual, 
at others as constantly alternate, and others having some of the 
leaves ternate. The base (in form—acute, rounded, or cordate) and 
petiolation of the leaf are extremely variable in individual species ; 
of the former we may instance I. repens and І. scapiflora ; of the 
latter, 7. insignis, I. leptoceras, and many others. 
For the most part the foliage is glabrous; it is sparsely hairy in 
a good many, pubescent in a few, tomentose or hirsute in still fewer, 
villous or glandular on the surface in none. The margin is often 
serrate or duplicate-serrate, with gland-tipped lobules, and is armed 
at the base and on the petiole with stipitate glands, which are 
always very variable in number, position, and form in each species. 
No species has stipules properly so called; but many have large 
glands, solitary or fascicled, sessile or stipitate, at the bases of the 
petioles on the stem. 
11. The stems of Balsams are annual or perennial ; or more often 
