Impatiens paradoxa C. S. Zhu & H. W. Yang

Plants annual, 30-65 cm tall, glabrous. Stem erect or basally ascending, striate when dry, succulent, branched, lower nodes swollen, with many fibrous roots. Leaves alternate, petiolate, crowded in upper part of stem; leaf blade pale green abaxially, dark green adaxially, elliptic or ovate-elliptic, 6-12 × 3-5.8 cm, membranous, with 2-4 pairs of stipitate basal glands, lateral veins 5 or 6 pairs, curved, base cuneate, margin coarsely crenate or crenate-serrate, teeth mucronulate, apex shortly acute or acuminate. Inflorescences in upper leaf axils, 1-flowered. Pedicels 1-1.5 cm, slightly elongate at fruiting, slender, bracteate above middle; bracts persistent, linear, 1.5-2.5 mm, or ovate, 4-5.5 mm, apex acuminate. Flowers yellow, 2.5-3 cm deep. Lateral sepals 2, purple spotted, obliquely ovate or suborbicular, 8-10 × 8-9 mm, abaxial midvein thickened, broadly carinate, inequilateral, margin 4(or 5)-denticulate on one side, apex acute. Lower sepal saccate, ca. 3 cm deep, abruptly constricted into 2 or 3 spurs; spurs incurved, 3.5-5 mm, 2-lobed, appearing as if 4-6 spurs; mouth oblique, 1.8-2 cm, tip acuminate. Upper petal suborbicular, 1-1.2 × 1.3-1.4 cm, base broadly cuneate, apex rounded, rostellate, abaxial midvein thickened, cristate at middle; lateral united petals clawed, 2.8-3 cm, 2-lobed; basal lobes oblong, small, 4.5-6 × ca. 4 mm, apex rounded, with a long, filamentous hair 6-7 mm; distal lobes dolabriform, 2.2-2.5 × 1.1-3 mm, apex acute, without a filamentous hair; auricle broad. Filaments linear; anthers ovoid, apex obtuse. Ovary fusiform, 4-5 mm. Capsule linear-cylindric, 3-4 cm. Seeds many, brown, oblong-globose, ca. 2 mm, verruculose. Fl. and fr. Aug-Oct.

Henan.

● Forest margins, shaded moist places by streams in valleys; 1400-1800 m.