Balsaminee.} THE“ HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. 151 
have them in equal numbers, some of them extending to an elevation of 7,000 feet. 
This anomaly can only be explained, and a stronger fact could not be adduced 
in its confirmation, than that the moisture and moderate temperature of the rainy 
season in the hills (for it is at this season only that they are found) is as favourable 
to their growth as the heat and moisture of the Peninsula. I have never met with 
any in the plains of India; but have heard from travellers that they are abandant ‘in 
Central India, whence we may expect some new species, as well as from the Neelgherries. 
The peculiarity of the Hill climate has been explained in the introductory chapter and 
at p. 16, where the moderation and equability of temperature, excess of moisture, and 
consequent smallness of evaporation during the rainy season, has been shewn to be 
favourable to the existence of tropical plants. At this season the balsams may be seen 
apparently unchanged for weeks together, with other plants which delight in a moist 
atmosphere, as Orchidee, Scitaminee, a few Melastomacee, Cyrtandracee, Begonias, the 
beautiful Platystemma violivides, and others of which the genera are considered peculiar 
to a tropical climate ; and of so loose, moist, and cellular a texture, as would at any other 
season in this locality be destroyed in a single day. It may, perhaps, be to this loose- 
ness of texture, of which we may suppose a degree of pliability to be characteristic, 
that we are to ascribe the great number of species, as well as their limited dis- 
tribution: for we find few of the Peninsular species in Bengal; not many of those 
from Silhet, in Nepal; and few of the latter in Gurhwal ; though of these, J. Hamit- 
toniana and insignis, with J. bicolor and pumila, nob., are common from Jurreepanee to 
Mussooree, flowering abundantly in the rainy season. A variety of, or one of the species 
nearly allied to, Z. Balsamina, is found in Sirmore, and near Simla. J. speciosa, one of 
the most splendid species, was brought me from the interior; and J. glandulifera, one of 
the largest, was produced from Cashmere seed. But the identification of species is 
- difficult in this genus, particularly in the dried state, without a minute examination 
of all the parts of the flower, and as I am without any specimens of Dr. Wallich’s 
species, I must refer the whole to Professor Henslow, of Cambridge, who has kindly 
undertaken, and will no doubt, with his usual ability, elaborate my species of the 
genus. Impatiens, at the same time with those in Dr.Wallich’s Herbarium. 
Impatiens bicolor ; erecta levis, apice flexuosa: foliis alternis ovato-acuminatis basi attenuatis petio- 
latis crenatis, crenis superioribus mucronilatis inferioribus glandulosis, pedunculis axillaribus trifloris, 
terminalibus multifloris subracemosis, pedicellis elongatis bracteis cordatis suffultis, sepalis lateralibus 
cordatis, caleare lineari inflexo, flore dimidio breviore capsulis glabris oblongis acuminatis.:—Hab. 
Mussooree and Simla. v. T. 28. fig. 1. (a.) The two lateral and the anterior calcarate sepal; (b.) the 
upper sepal; (c.c.) the four petals united in pairs; (d.) the stamens; (e.) the same, with the filaments 
separating at their base; (g.) capsule; (h.) the same bursting. 
I. glandulifera ; erecta, frutescens, ramosissima: foliis ternis lanceolatis acuminatis argute setratis, 
serris inferioribus, petiolis nodisque glanduliferis, pedunculis axillaribus terminalibusque multifloris 
racemosis, pedicellis elongatis, caleare brevissimo viridi glanduloso, capsula obovata apice spinulosa 
basi attenuata.—This gigantic species, obtained from Cashmere seed, is from its size very inadequately 
represented at Tab. 28. fig. 2, and the leaves are not sufficiently lanceolate. It succeeds well, both in 
the Saharunpore Botanic Garden and the Mussooree Experimental Nursery. 
45. OXALIDEA. 
