TOUCH-ME-NOT 169 



courses that communicate with them, and has now extended 

 itself from the mouth of the Wey into the Thames, being 

 found as far down the greater stream as Chiswick. It 

 is a freely-seeding annual of succulent habit. Its botanical 

 name Impatiens and its popular name Touch-me-not are 

 most appropriate, for on the slightest touch the fruit 

 bursts open, scattering its seeds abroad with startling 

 energy. The five valves of which the outer wrapping of 

 the capsule consists, at once then twist themselves tightly 

 into a spiral form. 



Our home for many years being on the banks of the 

 Wey, the touch-me-not was a plant as well known to us 

 as the iris itself, and in our boyish days we must have 

 compressed the tips of these capsules times beyond all 

 numerical computation, to see them thus start into vigorous 

 action, quite oblivious that we were treating in this un- 

 ceremonious fashion so distinguished a stranger. We recall, 

 later on, some one once bringing us a piece for identifica- 

 tion. In reaching out to gather it their foot had slipped 

 off a mossy old tree trunk that they had too implicitly 

 trusted to, and they were there and then immersed in 

 over six feet of water. This seeker after knowledge was, 

 naturally, interested to know that the plant was called 

 the touch-me-not, a name that they probably never forgot. 



Another species, the Impatiens noli-me-tangere, is found 

 sometimes in damp woods in various parts of England. 

 It has very slight claim to be considered a native plant. 

 As its botanical name from beginning to end implies, its 

 fruit exhibits the same curious and startling elasticity as 

 that of its near relative, the /. fulva. 



