Balsaminaceae A.Rich.

Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes with a tuberous or rhizomatous rootstock, occasionally subshrubby, sometimes epiphytic or semi-aquatic, usually growing in moist places in partial or complete shade, but never in dry places; stems usually succulent, rarely woody below, glabrous or pilose, upright or procumbent, often rooting at the lower nodes. Leaves simple, petiolate to sometimes sessile, spirally arranged, opposite or verticillate, pinnately veined, glabrous or pilose (hairs simple, multicellular); margins crenate, dentate or serrate, the teeth often with glanduliferous appendages, these sometimes fimbriate or filiform towards the base of the lamina; petiole occasionally with short capitate glands or fimbriae (extra-floral nectaries), usually in the upper half; exstipulate or with simple or branched glandular stipule-like structures. Flowers (fig. 1) bisexual, zygomorphic, resupinate through 180°, in simple or pseudoumbellate racemes forming axillary, rarely subterminal, inflorescences, or flowers often epedunculate, fascicled or solitary; bracts entire, rarely toothed; bracteoles occasionally present. Sepals 3, rarely 5, the lateral ones small, entire or toothed, the lower one (lower by resupination) large, navicular, funnel-shaped or saccate, tapering or abruptly constricted into a nectariferous spur which may be short-or long-filiform, straight, curved or incurved, or ± coiled, swollen at the tip or pointed, rarely bilobed or digitately lobed, often coloured. Petals 5, usually coloured, sometimes white, thin and sappy; the dorsal one (dorsal by resupination) small or large, flat or cucullate, often crested dorsally; lower petals free or united into lateral pairs at or below the middle (the lateral-united petals), the petals of each pair overlapping or with a narrow or wide sinus between them, the upper petals bilobed, emarginate or entire, as large as the lower petals or smaller, sometimes reduced to a tiny lobe, the lower petals seldom reduced, usually large or showy, bilobed, emarginate or entire, sometimes asymmetrically bilobed, the inner lobe occasionally drawn out into a long tapering appendage, sometimes emarginate along the inner margin. Stamens 5, alternating with the petals, connate or subconnate into a ring surrounding the ovary and stigma, falling off in one piece before the stigma ripens. Ovary superior, 5-locular, with exile placentation; ovules anatropous, 3–many; style 1, very short or ± absent; stigmas 1–5. Fruit a berry or a 5-valved loculicidal fleshy explosive capsule, the valves opening and coiling elastically to expel the seeds, glabrous or variously pubescent. Seed without endosperm, the testa smooth, warted or with simple, 1–many celled, hairs

The fleshy leaves and bright flowers make Impatiens species popular in horticulture. Impatiens balsamina is a known dye source. Some taxa are used in traditional medicines.