AN INEXHAUSTIBLE SUBJECT 897 



' constantly at work on the inexhaustible Balsams of India/ 

 for the very thoroughness with which he had stimulated re- 

 search into the genus everywhere, continually brought in more 

 plants, and revealed the need of additions and corrections, 

 especially in the W. Himalayan section. Species belonging 

 to this, which were in no other herbarium, unexpectedly turned 

 up in European collections, especially in the Vienna herbarium, 

 and by 1909 he had detailed descriptions of some thirty British 

 Indian species. To complete this section was * almost an 

 impossibility.' Kew did not possess half the species ; the 

 district was botanically unexplored, because, excepting Inayat 

 Khan, the collectors had been uninstructed men. Many 

 species, also, had been founded on single specimens, perhaps 

 found in one spot only* by a single collector ; some in turn 

 were finally reduced to varieties of the most diffused species, 

 that ' terror ' to botanisffe, which was named after Eoyle. 

 Were he but younger, he declares at ninety-one, he would go 

 and pick out species at Saharunpur. 



Still, when he has to reject other workers' identifications 

 among the Balsams, as in Mr. Duthie's paper in the Eecords 

 on Chitral plants, he confesses : 



I take to myself the blame, for you had nothing but the Fl. 

 Brit. Ind. to refer to, and that is utterly unsatisfactory, full 

 of imperfections and errors. In fact, it was not till after the 

 publication of Vol. I. of that work that I essayed a critical 

 study of the Indian species by moistening and analysing 

 every specimen where there could be any doubt. The con- 

 sequent labour has been trying, for within my experience no 

 genus of Phanerogams approaches Impatiens in difficulty of 

 analysis, description and classification of species. Except 

 by geographical areas it is impossible to bring the species 

 under control ; any attempt to bring all under one classifica- 

 tion as in Fl. Brit. Ind. ends in chaos. (November 10, 1909.) 



Having done so much since he was eighty, his one regret 

 was that he could not complete everything down to the last 

 detail. * If I were 10 years younger,' he adds on the 29th, 

 * I would offer to re-name the whole Impatiens Herbarium of 

 N. India/ 



