BALSAMINACEAE TOUCH-ME-NOT FAMILY 
SPOTTED TOUCH-ME-NOT. JEWELWEED 
Impatiens biflora Walt. 
The Spotted Touch-me-not, also called Wild Balsam and 
Jewelweed, is found in moist shady places, often forming dense 
patches, from Quebec to Oregon and south to Georgia and 
Kansas. It is an annual, 
2-5 feet tall, with stems 
that contain so much watery 
juice that they are nearly 
transparent. 
The flowers are orange- 
yellow thickly mottled with 
reddish brown, and _ oc- 
casionally pale and not 
mottled. They are axillary, 
single, and hang almost 
horizontal by slender pedi- 
cels. Their peculiar shape 
suggests some of the jewels 
worn as earrings by women 
of the nineteenth century. 
There are 3 sepals, the 2 
lateral being small, green 
and nerved, and the third 
large, saclike with a long 
slender incurved spur one- 
half the length of the enlarged portion, and colored like the 
petals. The petals are 5, each side petal united to the one just 
behind, so that the apparent number of petals is 3. The anthers 
of the 5 stamens, alternate with the petals, are united around 
the stigma. A scale is borne on the inner side of each filament and 
the 5 scales come together over the stigma. The styles of the 
5-parted pistil are lacking or obsolete and the fruit is a 5-celled, 
elastically dehiscent capsule filled with many seeds hanging in 
single rows. 
Although the large flowers are much visited by bumblebees 
they often do not develop fruits; instead, small flowers that 
never open but are pollinated in the bud are more likely to do so. 
Mature fruits are under such tension that a touch causes them 
to split into their 5 parts, hence the name Touch-me-not. 
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