Balsams of Eastern Himalya. A Regional Revision. 2018. (Flora of India. Series 4: Special and Miscellaneous Publications). 87 col. pls. 215 p. gr8vo. Hardcover.

The genus Impatiens with about 1000 species worldwide is one of the largest and most perplexing genera of vascular plants. The unusual variability of flower colour and shape has attracted attention of many bdotanists, including Joseph Dalton Hooker, who had worked on the group with octogenarian enthusiasm. The taxonomic study of balsams has been greatly hampered as many of the distinguished delicate characters of flowers in relation to their parts are often concealed in the dried herbarium specimens for delimitation. Colour fade away in pressed specimens and position of particular flower parts is often not evident. These difficulties lead to errors in delimiting the species. Moreover, many taxa are known from scarce, old, often inadequately preserved collections. Recent progress in technology, like digital photography and easy access to literature and digital botanical collections from across the world and focused explorations for special collections opened new opportunities, making studies of many difficult groups of plants including balsams possible.

India with more than 250 species of Impatiens is considered as one of centres of diversity of the genus. It is also interesting to note that, since J.D. Hooker's work on British Indian species of Impatiens, Vivekananthan & al. (1997) presented the account of family Balsaminaceae in Flora of India mainly based on collections housed in different herbaria and Bhaskar (2012) published an account on balsams of Western Ghats. When we initiated exploration and collection of balsams in Arunachal Pradesh, it was felt that whole Eastern Himalayan region needs to be revised and as the authors have been working in the region for more than three decades, the idea was conceived to bring out a modern treatise on "Balsams of Eastern Himalaya".

The present book attempts to present a taxonomic revision of this fascinating genus, based on fresh collections and study of herbarium material in India, US and Europe and gives an account of 80 species, one variety, one naturalised species and two cultivated species in Eastern Himalaya. The book provides up to date nomenclature, a detailed description and photo-plates showing the details of the plant parts for each species as well as keys to the Impatiens taxa found in the region.