JEWEL=WEED FAMILY. Balsaminaceae- 



JEWEL-WEED FAMILYv Balsaminacecp. 



Juicy-stemmed herbs with smooth simple-toothed 

 ieaves and irregular perfect flowers whose sepals and 

 petals are not clearly distinguished as such, the spurred 

 sack being one of the three sepals ; the other two are 

 lateral and small. Petals five, or three with two of 

 them two-cleft into dissimilar lobes. The five stamens 

 are short. Admirably adapted to fertilization by long- 

 tongued insects, such as bumblebees. 



A common, translucent-stemmed plant 

 Pal no or* 1 ' f wet an< * shadv situations in the north, 

 Jewel. weed especially on mountainsides. The sack of 

 impatiens the pale yellow, sparingly brown-spotted 

 aurea honey-bearing flower is obtuse and rather 



Pale yellow 8 h or t-in fact, somewhat bell-shaped, or 

 September as broad as it is long. The spur is scarcely 

 J the length of the sack. It is a more ro- 

 bust and a lighter green species than the next. Un- 

 doubtedly it is assisted in the process of fertilization by 

 the bumblebee and the honeybee. Throughout the north, 

 and south as far as Ga., but by no means as common as 

 I. biflora. 



The commoner one of the two species, 

 Spotted Touch- usua ^y ru ddy stemmed ; very variable in 

 impatiens color, with smaller flowers, sometimes 

 biflora deeply freckled with red-brown over a 



Gold yellow deep gold-colored ground, and at other 

 variable times pale buff yellow scarcely spotted. 



" y ~ . The sack is deep, longer than it is broad, 



and terminates with an incurved spur 

 nearly one half or fully one third of its length. In Pro- 

 fessor Robertson's opinion it is especially adapted to the 

 long bill of the hummingbird, but it is also visited by 

 the honeybee, bumblebee, and the bees known as Melis- 

 sodes bimaculata and Halictus confusus, as well as the 

 butterfly Papilio troilus. The flower develops its sta- 

 mens first, and afterward its pistil, so cross-fertilization 

 is almost an assured thing. 2-5 feet high. Me., south, 

 and west to Mo. Found in Campton, N. H. 



