mPATIENS. 
3 
scribing them. There are 3 or 5 sepals^ usually 3 only, of which 2 
are lateral, one on each side of the flower, they are often very 
small and green, but sometimes coloured ; the third, the ///>, is always 
coloured, is very much the largest, almost uniformly saccate or 
funnel-shaped and spurred ; when there are 5 sepals the 2 additional, 
always small and often slender, are inserted within and above the 
two lateral. There are 5 petals, 4 confluent in pairs, the wings / 
the fifth- -petal, the standard) is usually more or less orbicular 
a^d often spurred at the back. Viewing the flower in front, 
the standard is at the back of the flower, the lip in front, the 
wings appear to come out of the lip and the two or four lateral sepals 
are more or less out of sight The term standard is adopted from 
that of the pea-flower, the dorsal petal of which it resembles or re- 
presents, as the wings do the lateral wing-petals of the same plants ; 
the term lip is taken from its resemblance in position, and more or 
less in form and function, to that organ as it occurs amongst Orchids. 
I need not remind botanists that the flower of an Impatiens^ as seen in 
front, is really upside-down (resupinate); in early bud the position of 
the parts is reversed. 
W » - 
I.— Species of the Western Himalaya from the Nepal Frontier to 
Chitral. 
The chief materials from which the following list is drawn up 
were procured by Dr. Royle, Lady Dalhousie, Captain Strachey and 
Mr. Winterbottom, Dr. Thomson, Mr. M. P. Edgeworth, Dr. Fleming, 
Mr. C. B. Clarke, and Mr, J. F. Duthie. To the latter botanist 
I am especially indebted for having despatched from the Botanical 
Department, Saharanpore, a very able collector, Mr. Inayat, into 
Kumaon, Kashmir and Hazara to collect and preserve specimen 
of Balsams with dissevered floral organs, as well as leaves and 
inflorescences and fruit. The results have been of very great 
service. 
In the following key I have introduced a section that does not 
appear in the Flora of British India ; it is section 5, distinguished 
by the position of the bracts on the raceme. It will reappear in the 
keys of the East Himalayan and Burmese species. The European 
and North American species of Impatiens belong to it, as do many 
Chinese. 
The salient character of the East Himalayan group of species is 
that series A is represented by a single one only, /. Balsamina L., 
which is the only one common to 6 Indian regions of the genus. It 
