CHAPTER XL VI 



FINAL BOTANICAL WORK 



No sooner was the Flora of British India finished than {he 

 Indian Government requested Hooker to undertake the com- 

 pletion of the Handbook to the Ceylon Flora, interrupted by 

 the death of H. Trimen after the issue of three volumes. It 

 would be, he thought, a relatively easy task coming imme- 

 diately after the Indian Flora. It supplied occupation for 

 nearly three years, Part IV appearing in 1898 and Part V 

 in 1900. 



From the long labour of the Flora of British India sprang 

 two other works of substance. He was well aware of the 

 imperfection of the material upon which he had worked. 

 Some of the more difficult groups were still full of confusion, 

 with genera and species not accurately compared and delimited 

 by a careful monographer. One of the most perplexing was 

 the group of the Balsams (Impatiens), and to this he devoted 

 the chief part of his remaining years. Not only had new 

 Balsams been discovered in the score of years that had passed 

 since then, but he was not satisfied with the results he had 

 obtained from the Herbarium specimens upon which he had 

 worked for the Flora of British India. The species were very 

 often only to be distinguished by very delicate differences in 

 the shape of the flowers and the relations of their parts, which 

 were too often masked or crushed in the dried specimens by the 

 careless treatment of the native collectors. All his inexhaustible 

 patience was needed in the tedious work of soaking the crumpled 

 specimens from the paper to which they were heavily glued, 

 and getting them into shape for drawing and examination 



VOL. n 377 2 B 



