58 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



larger brooks many broad-leaved seedlings with smootli 

 rounded seed-leaves ver3^ numerous and conspicuous. 

 They are jewel weeds, probably Impatiens fulva for this 

 species is more common than I. pallida though the latter 

 may be plenty where it grows at all. 



The garden balsam and the "ever\' day flower" {Im- 

 patiens Sultani) are of the same genus and there are others 

 in Southern Asia but we onty have the fulva and pallida. 

 I. noli-tangere is found in Europe and John Burroughs 

 states that our fulva is naturalized in Scotland and is 

 spreading fast along certain rivers. 



The snow or freezing rain ma3'' cover these seedlings 

 again and again, the ground may freeze any number of 

 times ; it is nothing to these hardy plants. Soon there is 

 a branching bush (it may become five feet high) of most 

 graceful habit and with beautiful smooth foliage forming 

 with its numerous comrades dense thickets all over its 

 chosen ground or standing alone as it may be, covered 

 with lovely and curious flowers, budding and blooming 

 month after month. The young leaves put into water 

 show a quicksilver}" reflection and formed one of the di- 

 versions of childhood. Silver leaves, we called them. To 

 explode the ripe pods was another resource of our younger 

 da3^s. Touching the capsules tip carefull}" with the finger 

 the pod would split and the pices coil up so suddenly that 

 capsule and seeds would all fly to some distance. You 

 hear them sprinkle all around but the whole pod has van- 

 ished instantly. 



The garden balsam pod splits and coils in the same 

 wa3^ Very likely it is also explosive in its East Indian 

 home, our paler sun not being able to perfect it. Botan- 

 ists do not altogether agree as to the structure of these 

 singular flowers. The two little greenish leaves above all 

 the rest (reall}^ below but uj)permost as the flowes hangs 

 from itspedicil) are sepals and the large spurred sac is also 

 sepaline. The orange sac of fulva is richl3^ spotted inside 

 with red-brown, something like the sac of the orchid Cj-pr/- 

 pedium pariBorum while the petals are also thickly spot- 



