CLI.— THE TAWNY BALSAM. 
Impatiens bijiora Walter. 
I T is with great diffidence that we venture to retain this representative of the 
Family Balsaminacece here, where the group was placed by Bentham and Hooker, 
rather than follow Engler in transferring it to the Order Sapindales. Whilst there are 
unquestionably many important differences in detail between the Balsaminacece and the 
Geraniacece, somewhat similar in magnitude to those which separate the latter Family 
from the Oxalidacece, there seem to us to be many general resemblances suggestive of 
affinity. Not to speak of such vegetative characters as their succulent herbaceous 
habit and enlarged nodes — their monosymmetric spurred flowers and explosive fruits 
(differing though they do from those of Geraniacece ) suggest that Family or the allied 
Tropceolacece more than they do any Sapindales. While it is always dangerous to rely 
upon one character for the determination of affinity, it may be doubted whether the 
character upon which Engler’s view is mainly based, viz. the position of the ovules, 
is sufficiently uniform in either Order to be insisted upon. At the same time, 
it must be admitted that it is just one of those characters which, being apparently 
of no physiological or adaptational importance, is likely to be inherited without 
variation from a remote ancestry or throughout a wide range of affinity. It may 
be stated as follows: — in Geraniales there is either a solitary ovule in each carpel with 
its micropyle facing upward and the raphe, or adherent stalk, ventral, i.e. on the side 
of the ovule nearest to the placenta ; or if there are more than one ovule, some of 
them may have their micropyles facing downward and their raphes dorsal, i.e. 
adherent to the side of the ovule farthest from the central placenta. In Sapindales 
the ovules are either pendulous with an upward micropyle and a dorsal raphe, 
which is the case in the Balsaminacece, or ascending with a downward micropyle and 
a ventral raphe. 
The Family comprises only two genera with some 250 species, belonging to the 
Tropics and the North Temperate Zone. Their leaves are simple and, though 
usually scattered, may be opposite ; and stipules are absent or are merely represented 
by glands. The thin, delicate texture of the leaves, and their rapid transpiration, 
which causes them to flag quickly on being gathered, are characteristic of plants 
inhabiting damp, shady situations. 
Cleistogamous flowers occur in the apparently indigenous Yellow Balsam or 
Touch-me-not ( Impatiens noli-tangere Linne) of the north-west of England and 
Wales, and in the recently naturalised I. biflora Walter, which we have here for 
convenience called the Tawny Balsam ; but the ordinary flowers are large and 
conspicuous, being borne on long axillary peduncles. The slightness of these flower- 
stalks and the weight of the nectariferous spur causes an inversion of the flower, 
the structure of which is puzzlingly complicated and has given rise to considerable 
differences of interpretation. Sepals and petals are alike coloured, and their very 
