Sunday, August 15, 2010

Today's Flowers

The Indian Balsam Impatiens glandulifera is a great attractor of honey bees. It has many colours ranging from white to pink to purple.









The wild variety makes its appearance during the monsoon season. The wild balsams are usually magenta flowered. The double blossomed variety is also very popular. A vendor promised that the seeds he gave were double flower variety, but they turned out to be single.
The Balsam is called Karna Kundala in Kannada, because the flowers resemble ear ornaments.
The plants are very useful for biology teachers in school, as you can easily show children transportation of water and nutrients in a plant, using the translucent stems of balsam.You can see more flowers from different parts of the world in Today's Flowers at http://flowersfromtoday.blogspot.com/



14 comments:

  1. i've seen these flowers here. lovely colors.

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  2. Gorgeous flowers! They are all pretty colors, great photos!

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  3. Impatiens plants are fairly common here, as annual bedding plants. They are kind of boring. I like yours a lot more, as there is less uniformity to them. I like the way they are able to grow with individuality!

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  4. The colours of the blossoms are so vivid! Very pretty!

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  5. It's a lovely flower, such pretty colors and very enjoyable photos. Thank you!
    An English Girl Rambles

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  6. Balsams are really beautiful! You have so many colourful balsam!

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  7. Balsams are really beautiful! You have so many colourful balsam!

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  8. Hi Lotusleaf, we have a lot of those too. But usually they become too much that we have to weed them out. Even if we dont plant them anymore, there are still lots of them appearing after the first rains. But i agree with you they are beautiful. We call them "kamantigi here in the Philippines. I have not seen that violet color though.

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  9. Balsams are easy to grow and they are self sowed at times cos their seed pods will just pop n bust out. They look so pretty if planted mixing all the colours like yours

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  10. The Indian Balsam flowers are pretty.I guess they are a relative of the busy Lizzy, which I love to nestle between the plants in the shade.

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  11. As a child, I love bursting the seedpods of balsam plants in my neighbourhood. Your Balsam flowers have very vibrant colours.

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