Japan and temperate East Asia, Singapore and tropical Asia
Season
summer, autumn
Shape
single flower
Identification
An annual 20–75 cm tall with a thick soft juicy stem. Spirally arranged leaves 2.5–9 cm long and 1–2.5 cm wide with deeply toothed margins. Axillary flowers pink, red, mauve, purple, lilac or white, 2.5–5 cm across, with a curved spur, like a small phoenix, hence the Chinese name; double forms look like little roses. The ripe capsule bursts and curls at a touch, firing the seeds, hence touch-me-not and the Chinese nickname impatient one. Crushed petals with alum dye fingernails, so it is also the nail flower.
Habitat
Gardens, beds, wall bases and roadsides, self-seeding freely, one of the most traditional dooryard flowers of rural China; naturalised and invasive on some Pacific islands.
Distribution
Native to India and Myanmar and grown worldwide; common throughout China, grown throughout Japan (hōsenka), and grown in Singapore.
Season and behaviour
June to October, most in high summer; the capsules can go off at any time after August.
Photography tips
These are the FilmAnalysis editors' notes, not content from the sources.
The flowers hide in the leaf axils, so a side or low view is needed to see the hooked spur; pink and purple are truest in soft light. The bursting capsule needs high-speed bursts or video, fired at the instant a finger touches it. The nail-dyeing tradition can be shot as a small story of hands and flowers.
Photographic styles
Small phoenixes in the leaf axils; the instant a capsule bursts.
Similar species
New Guinea and busy Lizzie impatiens (flat flowers held clear of the leaves, very widely grown); Impatiens noli-tangere (yellow, wild, northern).
Related badge
None yet. No validated photo recognition exists for this species, so no badge is tied to it: a name in the encyclopedia is not evidence in a photograph.
The illustration is original FilmAnalysis artwork. The photograph is from Wikimedia Commons; its licence and author are under it.
Why it is listed: this species comes from the Flower checklist (GBIF backbone and Wikidata verified). Names follow the GBIF backbone and Wikidata; the facts follow the sources below; photo recognition is not offered.
