GERANIACE.E SAPINDACE^ 



375 



Impatiens biflora. 



5. IMPATIENS. TOUCH-ME-NOT. JEWEL-WEED. 



Soft or succulent tender herbs with simple alternate or opposite leaves 

 and very irregular flowers: sepals 3 to 5, usually 4, one of them produced 

 into a large curving spur; petals apparently 2, but each 

 consisting of a united pair; stamens 5: fruit 5-valved, 

 elastically discharging the seeds (whence the names "Im- 

 patiens" and "touch-me-not"). 



I. Balsamina, Linn. Garden balsam. Erect and stout, 

 1-2^ ft.: leaves lanceolate, toothed: flowers in the axils, 

 of many colors, often full double. 



I. bifldra, Walt. (/. fulva, Nutt.). Orange jewel-weed. 

 Fig. 521. Tall branching plant (2-4 ft.) with alternate 

 oval or long-oval blunt-toothed long-stalked leaves: flowers M.in. long, 

 horizontal and hanging, orange-yellow with a red-spotted lower lip, the 

 upper lip less spotted and of one piece, the 2 green sepals at the apex of 

 the pedicel closely appressed to the tube, the tail of the spur curled under 

 the spur: pod opening elastically when ripe, throwing the 

 seeds (the 5 valves quickly curling from above down- 

 wards). Common in swales. 



I. pallida, Nutt. (7. aurea, Muhl.). Yellow jewel-weed. 

 Fig. 522. Leaves usually stronger-toothed, the teeth usu- 

 ally ending in sharp points: flowers 1 in. long and much 

 broader than those of 7. biflora, clear yellow, the upper lip 

 of two parts, the lower also of 2 parts and nearly hori- 

 zontal, the 2 sepals at apex of pedicel large and not closely 

 522. appressed, tail shorter: pods as in the other. Less common 



Impatiens pallida. than the other, but often growing with it. 



XXVI. SAPINDACE.E. SOAPBERRY or MAPLE. 



Trees or shrubs, of various habit: flowers polypetalous or apeta- 

 lous, often inconspicuous, 4- or 5-merous: stamens 10 or less, borne 

 on a fleshy ring or disk surrounding the single 2-3-loculed pistil: fruit 

 a pod or samara. A various family, largely tropical. Genera about 75 

 and species about 600-700. Maple, box-elder, buckeye, horse-chest- 

 nut, bladder-nut, are familiar examples. 

 A. Herb: climbing by hook-like tendrils among the 



flowers in the cluster: fruit an inflated pod 1. Cardiospermum 



AA. Trees and shrubs. 



B. Stature of trees (or tall shrubs). 



c. Leaves simple (more or less palmately lobed) 

 or (in 1 species) 3-5 pinnately compound: 



fruit a samara (with 2-winged seeds) 2. Acer 



cc. Leaves digitately compound, 5-9 leaflets 3. dZsculus 



BB. Stature of shrubs: leaves pinnately 3-7 compound: 



fruit a large bladdery pod 4. Staphylea 



