Little children like to play with its ripe pods of seeds that explode when touched, hence its other name "Touch-Me-Not".
Its beautiful blooms, single or in small clusters grow close to the thick-juicy stems and each of them have a columbine-like spur on the back.
Garden Balsams, also called rose balsams, come in a wide variety of flower colors from white, pink, rose, red, violet to bi-color and they bloom all summer. These are the last ones of this summer.
The double petaled variety, in the last photo, resembles to camellias.
It is interesting to mention that different parts of the plant are used to treat diseases: the juice made from balsam leaves treats snakebite and warts while the flower can be applied to burns to cool the skin.
5 comments:
Such a fragile pale pink. Beautiful.
This is a lovely flower and it's amazing the plant has so many uses!
These impatiens are much fancier than the ones I saw here! Beautiful shots..
I've never seen these before. There seems to be quite a variety of plants that call themselves impatiens.
I remembered playing with the pods as a child but it wasn't known as touch-me-not here, the mimosa was named 'touch me not' because it closes when touch. Used to have lots of the balsams around my old home, but nowadays it's rarely seen around here.
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