Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Ericales > Balsaminaceae > Impatiens > Impatiens balsamina

Impatiens balsamina (spotted snapweed)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Impatiens balsamina (garden balsam, garden jewelweed, rose balsam, spotted snapweed, touch-me-not) is a species of Impatiens native to southern Asia in India, Bangladesh and Burma. It is an annual plant growing to 20–75 cm tall, with a thick, but soft stem. The leaves are spirally-arranged, 2.5–9 cm long and 1–2.5 cm broad, with a deeply toothed margin. The flowers are pink, red, mauve, lilac, or white, and 2.5–5 cm diameter; they are pollinated by bees and other insects, and also by nectar-feeding birds. The ripe seed capsules undergo explosive dehiscence.
View Wikipedia Record: Impatiens balsamina

Infraspecies

Impatiens balsamina var. balsamina
Impatiens balsamina var. macrantha
Impatiens balsamina var. micrantha

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Low
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [2]  Regular ingestion of large quantities of these plants can be dangerous due to their high mineral content; This report, which seems nonsensical, might refer to calcium oxalate. This mineral is found in I. capensis and so is probably also in other members of the genus. It can be harmful raw but is destroyed by thoroughly cooking or drying the plant; People with a tendency to rheumatism, arthritis, gout, kidney stones and hyperacidity should take especial caution if including this plant in their diet;
Lifespan [2]  Annual
Pollinators [2]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Structure [3]  Herb
Usage [2]  A dye is obtained from the plant; The prepared juice has been used for dyeing fingers and toenails red; The seed contains 27% of a viscous oil, though the report does not mention if this oil is utilised for any purpose;
Height [2]  24 inches (0.6 m)
Width [2]  20 inches (0.5 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Impatiens balsamina

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Archipelago de Colon Biosphere Reserve 34336011 Galapagos Islands, Ecuador  
Palava Protected Landscape Area V   Czech Republic  
Volcán Poás National Park II 16115 Costa Rica

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Podosphaera balsaminae[8]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 4del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 5Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 6HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 7Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0