April 21. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
33 
I 
I 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
w 
D 
APRIL 21—27, 1853. 
Weather near London in 1852. 
Barometer. Thermo. Wind. Rain in In 
Sun’s decl., 11°56'n. 30.074 29.957 
Early Grey; paling. 29-833 29.821. 
St. George. 29.961 - 29.842 ( 
4 Sunday after Easter. 29.903 — 29.896 
St. Mark;. Prs. Albert born 1843. 22.922 — 29.900 
[Ds. Glou. born 1776. 30.071 — 29.95 3 
Insulated Carpet; woods. 30.168 — 30.141 
61—37 
70—43 
68—42 
53— 33 
54— 30 
63—27 
55— 25 
S.E. 
S.E. 
E. 
E. 
E. 
N.E. 
N. 
Th 
F I 
S 
Sun 
M 
Tu 
W 
Mftforology of the Week.— At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-six years, the average highest and lowest tempera¬ 
tures of these days are 59 °! and 38° respectively. The greatest heat, 75°, occurred on the 23rd in 1842 ; and tlielowest cold, 25°, on the 25th 
in 1827. During the period 96 days were fine, and on 86 rain fell. ______ 
Sun 
Rises. 
53 a. 4 
51 
49 
47 
45 
43 
41 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R, & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock j 
bf. Sun. 
Day of ; 
Year. 
4 a. 7 
4 27 
13 
1 
22 
Ill 
6 
1 4 4G 
14 
1 
35 
112 
7 
| rises. 
© 
1 
47 
113 
9 
8 a 36 
16 
1 
58 
114 
11 
10 6 
17 
2 
9 
115 
12 
11 28 
18 
2 
19 
116 
14 
morn. 
19 
2 
29 
117 
HOOKER’S BALSAM. 
(Impatiens Hookeriana). 
This is a large, white, handsome species from the island 
of Ceylon, whence it was sent by Mr. Thwaites to our 
national garden at Kew, where it flowered last summer, 
after attaining the height of from two to three feet. The plant 
has been long known to science, from dried specimens sent 
home by Mrs. General Walker, who first named it in com¬ 
pliment to Sir W. J. Hooker. It has much of the character 
of the now common Himalaya Balsams, and comes near to 
Impatiens Candida., but the spur is much longer than in that 
species. The nearest to it is grandis, a species not yet in¬ 
troduced, but known from Heyne’s description of it in the 
ninth volume of the Madras Journal. It produces from 
four to six large white flowers in a head; the bottom or 
lower part is richly marked with purple veins ; the spur is 
unusually long, and shaped like a huntsman’s curved horn. 
Ceylon, and the whole Indian Archipelago, together with 
the Indian Continent, swarm with handsome species of 
these Balsams, wherever the circumstances favourable to 
their production are present, viz., a moist climate and a 
moderate temperature. A dry, hot atmosphere is alike in¬ 
imical to the whole race, in nature, or under cultivation. 
Hence, one species only is found in Madagascar, while, 
according to Dr. Wallich and Dr. Wight, the shady places 
on hill-tops enjoying a mean temperature of 70° during the 
Balsam season, abound with them all over India. Great 
numbers of them inhabit regions of a lower mean tem¬ 
perature during the seasons of their greatest perfection. 
Balsams, though “common as household words,” have 
been the subject of much dispute among botanists as to the 
real nature of the parts which compose the flower. Achille 
Richard in 1822, Decandolle in 1824, Kunth in 1827, Roper 
in 1830, Wight and Arnott in 1834, Wight {Mad. Journal, 
1837), Bernhardi in 1838, and Bindley {Bot. Beg.) in 1840, 
with other men, able, but of less note, have offered veiy 
opposite views as to the nature of the floral parts m the 
flower of a Balsam, but Kunth and Lindley are now con¬ 
sidered as having set the discussion on a proper basis, it 
not at rest. According to them, this flower, however irre¬ 
gular it may appear to the unlearned, is formed on the 
usual plan of regular structure; five cells to the ovary or 
seed-pod; and five stamens alternating with the cells. After 
these the flower is composed of two inner and two outer 
pieces, and each piece is composed of two lobes joined 
together by their edges; then, if each of the two innermost 
pieces were set free, they would fall into the places assigned 
to petals, or alternate with the stamens. The two outer¬ 
most pieces, when set free, will fall into the places of foui 
divisions of the calyx, and the spur forms the fifth division 
of the calyx, giving a regular flower on the quinary type, 
with the exception of the fifth petal, and that is supplied in 
some plants belonging to the order, Hydrocera trijlora for 
instance, this completing the quinary, or five-part system— 
five cells for seeds, five stamens to fertilize them, five petals 
to house them, and five sepals to thatch the whole in one 
bud, or as Linnaeus put them, Pentandria Monogynia. 
At Kew, in the stove, this plant is between two and three 
feet high ; leaves large, pointed egg-shaped, saw-toothed, 
smooth ; leaf-stalks varying from one to four inches long, 
with two oblong glands near the upper end; flower-stalk 
usually longer than the leaves, and bearing an umbel of 
four or six flowers. It seems to be the Impatiens biglan- 
dulosa of Moon’s Catalogue of Ceylon Plants, and is 
figured in the Botanical Magazine, t. 4704. B. J. 
Propagation and Cultivation. —The Salvias now common 
in the borders, and even the Chrysanthemum itself, weie 
once supposed to need the aid of the stove to bring them 
up to perfection. It is just the same with Indian Balsams 
like this. The first plant of this breed that I saw was one 
about a yard high, and nearly as much through, a little 
above the pot. It was in a late vinery, and about the end 
of July, and I shall never forget the shudder it gave me all 
over. The gardener was an old friend of mine, and the 
place one of the largest near London, and there were moie 
red spiders on that Balsam than, I should think, were then 
in the whole county of Middlesex! Since then I have 
known the seeds of this very kind of Balsam to have been 
exposed to forty-seven degrees of frost; that is, five degiees 
below zero, without suffering in the least; but what 
is more curious, sow some of the seeds in two pots, and put 
one pot in a hotbed, and the other pot in a bed of cabbages, 
and the latter will give you plants sooner than the other, 
nine times out of ten. 
All the Indian Balsams, as they are called, that we know 
of in cultivation, are just as hardy as potatoes, if not more 
so ; and this one from Ceylon looks as if it were in relation¬ 
ship with the Himalayan ones, and very probably, when we 
have enough of it for the experiment, it will grow out in 
the open air as well if not better than in-doors. It is very 
likely that the herbage of this one will be killed by the first 
frost in the autumn, but then it is so easy to keep a few of 
them from cuttings in stove pots, and these few can be ex¬ 
tended in the following spring, by cuttings, to any extent, as 
they root more freely than Fuchsias or Verbenas. 
1 
No. CCXXXVIII., Vo l. X, 
