Botanical name: Impatiens fruticosa    Family: Balsaminaceae (Balsam family)

Shrubby Balsam is perennial erect shrub, about 2.5 m tall, much branched, branches hairless, glaucous, nodose at scars. Flowers are borne in leaf-axils, paired or solitary, about 4 cm across, pink. Bracts are linear-subulate; flower-stalks often much larger and exceeding leaves. Lateral sepals are ovate, tapering, 1.5 x 0.6 cm, woolly. Lip is trumpet-shaped, tapering, about 1 cm long, spurred; spur curved, about 2.5 cm long. Wings are 2-lobed; lobes oblong, nearly equal, diverging. Filaments are united at tip. Leaves are alternate, ovate or elliptic, narrowed at base, tapering at tip, rounded toothed along margins, fringed with hairs and glandular towards base, 7-13 x 3.5-5.5 cm, velvet-hairy on both surfaces, sometimes silky beneath, many nerved, nerves stout; leaf-stalk 2 -7 cm long, stout, often hairy, naked or glandular. Capsules are erect, ellipsoid, narrowed at both ends, beaked, about 2.5 cm long, hairless; seeds numerous. Shrubby Balsam is endemic to Southern W. Ghats, found at margins of sholas at an altitude of 1000 m, in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Flowering: October-January.

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The flower labeled Shrubby Balsam is ...