Impatiens purpurea Hand.-Mazz.

Plants annual, 40-70 cm tall, glabrous or sparsely stipitate glandular, with short, supporting roots. Stem erect, robust, simple or many branched. Leaves alternate, or crowded at upper parts of stem and branches and subverticillate, lower leaves long petiolate, upper leaves subsessile; leaf blade elliptic or lanceolate-elliptic, 5-15 × 3.5-4.5 cm, membranous, setose between teeth, lateral veins 6-9 pairs, curved, with stipitate glands, base cuneate, margin densely crenate, apex caudate-acuminate. Inflorescences in upper leaf axils, racemose, 4-6(-8)-flowered; peduncles shorter than leaves, 4-8 cm. Pedicels 1-2.5 cm, slender, bracteate at base; bracts persistent, broadly ovate or orbicular, 3-5 × 2-3 mm, membranous, hyaline, apex mucronulate. Flowers purple, 3.5-5 cm deep. Lateral sepals 2, broadly ovate, 4-5 mm, base subcordate, apex mucronulate. Lower sepal obliquely funnelform, limb ca. 1.5 cm deep, gradually narrowed into a mid-curved spur ca. 1.2 cm; mouth oblique, ca. 3 mm, mucronulate. Upper petal cucullate, orbicular, 8-9 mm, apex mucronulate, abaxial midvein thickened, carinate; lateral united petals not clawed, ca. 2 cm, 2-lobed; basal lobes obovate; distal lobes lanceolate, ca. as long as basal lobes. Filaments ligulate; anthers orbicular, apex obtuse. Ovary fusiform. Capsule linear-cylindric, 2.5-3 cm. Seeds many (ca. 15), brown, oblong, 3-4 mm, smooth. Fl. Aug-Sep, fr. Oct.

NW Yunnan.

● Forest understories, by streams in valleys; 2400-3300 m.