Tab. 7195. 

 IMPATIENS MIRABILIS. 



Native of Langhawi Island. 



Nat. Ord. Gekaniace^s. — Tribe Balsamine^:. 

 Genus Imfatiens, Linn.; (Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. PI. vol. i. p. 277.) 



Impatiens mirabilis ; caule orgyali columnari crasso cylindraceo apice folioso, 

 foliis confertis longe petiolatis amplis subcarnosis ovatis crenatis costa 

 crassa, petiolo valido alato, racemis brevibus axillaribus erectis pauci- 

 floris aimplicibus v. basi ramosis, pedunculo valido, floribus magnis aureis, 

 sepalis 3, lateralibus elliptico-oblongis acutis concavis, postico brevi 

 amplo hemispherico calcare brevi incurvo, petalo antico rotundato v. 

 transverse oblongo, petalis lateralibus in unum porrectum trilobum 

 coalitis, lobis lateralibus rotundatis erectis concavis, intermedio angustiore 

 oblongo piano bipartito segmentis oblongis apice rotundatis. 



It would be difficult to conceive a wider departure from 

 the habit of its genus than this remarkable plant presents. 

 It is an undoubted Impatiens, but whereas the other species 

 of that large genus are weak succulent annuals, or low 

 branched perenials, /. mirabilis possesses an erect naked 

 trunk that attains in its native country to four feet in height, 

 and the thickness of a man's leg, crowned with a tuft of 

 many large, long petioled, fleshy, spreading leaves, nearly 

 a foot long, from the axils of which spring erect 

 racemes of golden flowers, larger by far than in most other 

 members of the genus known to me, but singularly uncouth 

 in form. 



In the absence of fruit it is not possible to determine 

 the nearest affinity of Impatiens mirabilis, but it probably 

 belongs to the section of the genus with short ellipsoid or 

 oblong capsules turgid in the middle, to which the Malayan 

 and Deccan Peninsular species almost exclusively belong; the 

 other section, with linear or clavate capsules being almost 

 exclusively Himalayan. In its very stout perennial stem it 

 approaches the members of a little group of thick-stemmed 

 Nilghiri species to which I applied the term " Epiphyticse" 

 in the Flora of British India, but these are very small 

 prostrate plants, with usually swollen internodes, and have 



September 1st, 1891. * 



