丰满凤仙花 feng man feng xian hua

Impatiens eramosa Tutcher ex W. Y. Chun.

Plants succulent, 30-40 cm tall, glabrous. Stem erect, flat, thick, simple or rarely shortly branched from middle, naked in lower part. Leaves alternate, often crowded toward apex of stem, polymorphic; petiole 1-4 cm, with 2 sessile glands at base; leaf blade greenish abaxially, ovate or oblanceolate, 4-15 × 2.5-3.5 cm, glabrous, lateral veins 8-15 pairs, base cuneate, attenuate into petiole, margin serrulate, apex acute or acuminate. Inflorescences in leaf axils, 1- or 2-flowered; peduncles very short, 2-3 mm. Pedicels 1-2.5 cm, slender, glabrous, bracteate at base; bracts persistent, ovate, ca. 2 mm, membranous. Flowers pink-purple, 2-3 cm deep. Lateral sepals 4; outer 2: orbicular or elliptic-orbicular, 8-15 mm in diam., apex cuspidate; inner 2: minute, ovate, ca. 2 mm. Lower sepal shallowly saccate or cup-shaped, ca. 1.5 cm deep, abruptly constricted into an incurved, short spur; mouth oblique, ca. 1.5 cm wide, tip acuminate. Upper petal broadly obovate or cuneate, 1-1.5 cm, apex retuse or truncate, mucronulate, abaxial midvein thickened, cristate; lateral united petals not clawed, 8-15 mm, 2-lobed; basal lobes spreading, pyriform; distal lobes dolabriform, often connate into 2-lobed lamella; auricle inflexed, triangular. Filaments linear, 4-5 mm; anthers ovoid, apex obtuse. Ovary erect, fusiform. Capsule fusiform. Seeds brown, orbicular, compressed, ca. 4 mm in diam. Fl. Jun-Jul.

● Forest margins on slopes, valleys, watersides; 400-800 m. N Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi.

This species has very short pedunculate inflorescences, pedicels bracteate at the base, and distal lobes of lateral united petals connate or adnate into a lamella. These characters seem to indicate a group in the genus including also Impatiens hainanensis, I. morsei, I. musyana, and I. polyneura.

After publication of the FOC treatment, Impatiens obesa J. D. Hooker was lectotypified by YU Shengxiang et al. (see Guihaia 28: 728. 2008).