TOUCH-ME-WOT FAMILY 



varieties. The individual flowers are very beautiful, but they 



cling so close to the stem and are so overshadowed by the leaves 



that their value is greatly lessened. 



Impatiens sutthni, often simply called Sultana, is a well-known 



house plant of succulent brittle stems, bright-green shining leaves, 



bearing in the primitive form beau- 

 tiful crimson blossoms. Hybrids 

 and sports have given colors from 

 pink to piurple and a white variety 

 exists. The front view of the flowers 

 suggests by its outline a pansy, but 

 its structure is by no means pansy- 

 like. There are three sepals, two 

 very small and green, the third with 

 , , , , ^,,. ,^, a larger blade than the others and 



Jewelweed. Impatiens juhia ° 



a long slender spur. This spur 

 seems so inconsequent and irrelevant that it never ceases to be a 

 w.onder. The petals are five and their arrangement suggests 

 the pansy. 



This child of the tropics finds the warm, moist atmosphere of 

 the country kitchen most agreeable, and thrives there beyond 

 measure. It possesses, moreover, the great house-plant virtue, 

 it increases by cuttings which root readily, consequently no 

 neighbor who wishes a plant need go without one. 



The two Jewelweeds or Touch-me-nots, Impatiens fMva and 

 Impatiens pdllida, the Tawny and the Pale, are among our most 

 beautiful native plants. Lovers of shade, growing in great num- 

 bers in moist places and along mountain watercourses, they often 

 possess and hold, without a rival, really large tracts. The trans- 

 lucent stems, with leaves which vmder water look silvery, bear 

 a flower of such peculiar shape as to attract attention from the 

 most casual observer. Its shape suggests a cornucopia with a 

 curved and attenuated base and a frilled border. Sepals and 

 petals have become virtually indistinguishable in respect to color. 

 The flower is credited with three sepals, two lateral ones small 

 and green, the third saccate and spurred, a veritable horn of 



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