The rapid spread of these species when once they are introduced to a marshy 

 area is due to the explosive nature of the fruit upon dehiscence. This action pro- 

 pels the seeds for some distance from the mother plant. 



1. Flower orange to reddish; spur gradually bent parallel with the sac and one 



third to one half its length, the sac longer than broad 



1. /. capensis. 



1. Flower pale-yellow; spur bent at right angles to the sac and one fifth to one 

 fourth its length, the sac broader than long 2. /. pallida. 



1. Impatiens capensis Meerb. Spotted touch-me-not. Fig. 517. 



Succulent annual, glabrous, bright-green, to 15 dm. high, the stems simple 

 or freely branched; leaves with petioles to 1 dm. long, broadly ovate to ovate- 

 elliptic, obtuse-mucronate at apex, broadly cuneate to rounded at base, pale or 

 glaucous beneath, to 12 cm. long and 8 cm. wide, coarsely crenate-mucronate; 

 flowers axillary or panicled, often both normal and cleistogamous flowers pro- 

 duced; bracts of inflorescence linear-subulate; flowers 2-3 cm. long, pendulous 

 on filamentous pedicels to about 2 cm. long, usually orange-color with crimson 

 spots; sepals apparently 4, the anterior sepal notched at the apex, the large 

 posterior saccate sepal longer than broad and its spur one third to half its 

 length and bent back parallel with it; filaments appendaged with a scale on the 

 inner side, the 5 scales connivent over the stigma; capsules about 2 cm. long, 

 the 5 valves coiling elastically and dehiscing explosively when touched or shaken. 

 /. biflora Walt. 



In moist woods, along streams and in springy places in open or shade in e. 

 Tex. and Okla., May-Sept.; from Nfld. and Que. to Alas., s. to Fla. and Tex. 



2. Impatiens pallida Nutt. Fig. 518. 



Freely branched glabrous annual, to about 2 m. tall; leaves elliptic to ovate- 

 elliptic, to 13 cm. long and 8 cm. wide, rounded at base, crenate, the petiole to 

 6 cm. long; axillary panicles small; flowers 2.5-4 cm. long, typically pale-yellow 

 and more or less dotted with red; saccate sepal obtuse, nearly or quite as wide 

 as long, the short (about 5 mm. long) spur abruptly deflexed; capsules 2-2.5 cm. 

 long, 3-4 mm. in diameter; seeds dark-brown, ellipsoidal, 4-6 mm. long, the 

 inner seed coat blue. 



Wet woods and meadows in e.-cen. Okla. (Cherokee Co.), May-Aug.; Que. 

 and N.S., w. to Sask., s. to N.C., Tenn., Mo. and Okla. 



Fam. 86. Vitaceae Juss. Grape Family 



Shrubs or woody vines with watery acid juice, usually climbing by tendrils 

 opposite the leaves or on the peduncles; leaves alternate, essentially entire to 

 palmately 3- or 5-lobed or compound; stipules deciduous; inflorescences opposite 

 the leaves; flowers often unisexual and perfect on the same plant, small, regular, 

 greenish, 4- or 5-merous, with a minute or truncated calyx (its limb mostly 

 obsolete) and stamens as many as the valvate petals and opposite them; filaments 

 slender; anthers introrse; style short or none; stigma slightly 2-lobed; grape 2-celled, 

 1-to 4-seeded; seeds bony, with a minute embryo at the base of the hard albumen. 



More than 600 species in about 20 genera widespread in tropical and tem- 

 perate regions. 



1. Bark loosening and freely exfoliating in shreds and without lenticels; pith 

 brownish; leaves simple; inflorescence a compound thyrse; petals 

 separating only at base, falling without expanding; seeds mostly 

 pyriform 1. Vitis 



1108 



