THE INDIAN BALSAMS 383 



and the two celebrations, one the fiftieth anniversary of the 

 Darwin- Wallace communication to the Linnean Society ; the 

 other the centenary of Charles Darwin's birth. 



Such were the main lines of his work. 1 Some details may 

 be filled in from the unceasing stream of his correspondence. 

 Thus even in November 1898 he would go three or four days 

 a week to Kew, being busy at the Botanical Magazine ; but 

 by way of avoiding the journey in the winter, he would bring 

 home the ' portable ' and less bulky Orders to dissect and 

 draw. 



While at work on the completion of Trimen's Ceylon Flora, 

 he was consulted by Mr. Duthie as to the best method of drawing 

 up and printing local Floras. 



A letter to Mr. Duthie of May 3, 1898, contains the first 

 reference to the work on the Indian Balsams. The Himalayan 

 Impatiens had ' worried ' him of late. As has been said, a 

 multitude of these had been discovered since the publication 

 of the Flora of British India, and some species had become 

 garden weeds in England. One of these (presumably sulcata) 

 in his own garden, was not even in Kew Herbarium. It differed 

 subtly from the type he had himself drawn in Sikkim. Speci- 

 mens borrowed from Mr. Duthie's N.W. Himalayan collection 

 served to settle other points, but not this. As it came into 

 flower again in August, he resolved * to figure it for the Bot. 

 Mag. whatever it be.' The usphot of long investigation, includ- 

 ing the raising of young plants in Lord Bedesdale's garden at 

 Batsford, was that sulcata as denned by Wallich was a collection 

 of extreme varieties of two other species. Such confusion 

 was an added difficulty in a genus already difficult by reason 

 of the extraordinary distortion of the parts of the flower. 

 Determination of a species was as difficult as analysing an 

 herbarium specimen. And most herbarium specimens were 

 unsatisfactory. The criticism which follows put Mr. Duthie on 

 his mettle and brought about a revolution in the mode of 

 collecting. 



1 Here it may be noted in passing that in 1901 Hooker devised a very- 

 practical form of micrometer for use in botanical dissection, which was after- 

 wards manufactured in Cambridge and then in Edinburgh under the name of 

 the Kew micrometer. 



