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Shining Balsam
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Shining Balsam
ative Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Shining Balsam
Botanical name: Impatiens dasysperma    Family: Balsaminaceae (Balsam family)
Synonyms: Impatiens lucida

Shining Balsam is an erect herbs, 30 cm tall. Flowers are pink, 2 cm across, solitary or paired, in leaf axils. Flower-stalks are 3 cm long, lip 7 x 4 mm, long-pointed, hairless. Spur is prominent, 1.7 cm long, narrow, minutely hairy. Sepals are small, ovate, pointed, hairy. Standard petals is 9 x 6 mm, obovate, notched at tip, sharply cuspidate, keeled, keel frilly. Wings are 9 x 10 mm, equally 2-lobed, lobes obovate, inverted-heart-shaped. Leaves are up to 11 x 3.5 cm, elliptic, tapering at tip, narrow at base, toothed, hairy below, carried on 4 cm long stalk. Capsule is 12 x 6 mm, hairless, seeds 1.5 mm ovoid, minutely hairy. Shining Balsam is endemic to Western Ghats. Flowering: November-December.

Identification credit: Shrishail Kulloli, Siddarth Machado Photographed in Munnar, Kerala & Sakleshpur, Karnataka.

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