THE CHINESE BALSAMS 401 



Then in 1907-8 he dealt with the Chinese Balsams, from 

 Kew, Calcutta and Berlin, from St. Petersburg, Christiania 

 and Paris. They were overwhelming in number and variety. 

 Of the 130 species of Kew and Paris combined, only thirty 

 were common to both. From St. Petersburg came 350 sheets, 

 without counting those of N. China. While he was correcting 

 the proofs of his article in the Kew Bulletin on the Balsams 

 of Indo-China and the Malay Peninsula, two new species 

 came in from the Fribourg Herbarium, and as a crowning 

 touch, he tells Mr. Duthie (January 28, 1909) : 



Only this morning I get a letter from the Paris Herb, 

 telling me that they regret having overlooked some 40 sheets 

 of Indo-Chinese specimens when sending me the lot I had 

 described ! This is like a stroke of paralysis to a man 

 approaching his 93rd year, but it is no use grumbling, 

 my eyes are as good as ever, and my fingers as agile as ever, 

 and I am indeed thankful. 



In February 1909 he was ' still grovelling among Balsams/ 

 finishing his monograph of the Indo-Chinese species for Le- 

 comte's ' Flore Generale de l'lndo-Chine,' which took the longer 

 to complete as individual comparison was necessary with two 

 other collections. If the other specimens had been bard to 

 handle, these had the sad pre-eminence of being by far the 

 most troublesome he ever handled. By the end of this time his 

 detailed descriptions amounted to nearly three hundred species. 



It is a small but characteristic point that Hooker offered 

 not only to defray the cost of translating his paper into French, 

 but to provide special drawings up to £10 if desired by the 

 editor of the Archives. Twelve of the new species had 

 been figured in the Icones. Kew also offered to lend the 

 drawings made from the Chinese specimens from the Paris 

 collection to be copied or photographed, over seventy sheets. 

 Hooker strongly recommended the acceptance of this offer, 



for species of Impatiens are inconceivably difficult of deter- 

 mination and identification from herbarium specimens ; 

 Iand considering that the great majority of the Chinese species 

 are described from single herbarium specimens, my deter- 

 mination of them must be often very faulty. 



