BALSAMS 281 



expansion, being in form and marking very sug- 

 gestive of such a name. 



The fritillary grows to a height of a foot or so, 

 the stem bearing three or four narrow leaves and 

 generally but a single terminal flower. It favours 

 moist meadows and pastures, but in England is 

 perhaps only truly wild in a few localities in the 

 southern and eastern counties. It is a very near 

 relative to the wild tulip. 



In the damper portions of our rock-garden we 

 grow each year, very successfully, large masses of 

 the orange balsam, or touch-me-not, the Impatiens 

 fulva. Though purely a North American plant, it 

 has somehow established itself on the banks of the 

 Wey, and thence to the shores of the Thames. 

 Though an annual, it seeds very freely ; we do not 

 trouble to collect the seed, being well content that 

 a succession of self-sown plants is assured to us. 

 The flowers are pendulous, very quaint in form, of a 

 deep orange colour, spotted and speckled over with a 

 yet darker reddish-brown. An allied species, the 

 yellow balsam /. noli-me-tangere is found growing 

 in some parts of England, but chiefly in the northern 

 counties. On being touched the ripe seed-vessels 

 burst suddenly open and scatter their seeds far and 

 wide. The action is bewilderingly rapid : at one 

 moment we are looking at a compact pod, while in 

 the next its segments have sprung vigorously wide 

 open and rolled themselves up into spirals. Hence 



