Balsam

What does Balsam look like?

Balsam is an annual, a plant that lives one season and returns from seed. It grows 20 to 75 cm tall on a stem that is thick but soft. The leaves sit in a spiral up the stem, 2.5 to 9 cm long and 1 to 2.5 cm wide, with deeply toothed edges. Flowers are 2.5 to 5 cm across and come in pink, red, mauve, purple, lilac or white. Bees, other insects and nectar-feeding birds move pollen between them. Ripe seed capsules burst open when touched.

Where does Balsam come from?

The species grows wild in India and Myanmar. It has been carried around the world as an ornamental garden plant, and where it escapes it can seed itself so freely that it is counted as naturalised and invasive on several islands in the Pacific Ocean. Its English nicknames describe it well: garden and rose balsam for the garden plant, touch-me-not for the seed pod. In Korea it is bongseonhwa, in Japan housenka.

When and how Balsam blooms

Balsam is an annual, so a new plant comes from seed each year rather than from an old root. It is grown widely as an ornamental. The flowers are pollinated by bees, by other insects and by birds that feed on nectar. When the capsules ripen they split and throw their seed clear of the plant. That habit is one reason the species has settled on Pacific islands far from its native range, where it is now naturalised and invasive.

How Balsam is used

In Asia the plant has long been a household remedy. Leaf juice went on warts and snakebite and flowers were laid on burns. It was used for rheumatism, fractures and other complaints, and in Korea a preparation called bongseonhwa dae treated constipation and gastritis. In China it was given for snakebite and for eating poisonous fish, and stalks and flowers were made into pastes. Vietnamese washed their hair with an extract to encourage growth. In Nepal crushed leaves dye fingernails on Shrawan Sakranti; in China and Korea flowers mixed with alum give an orange nail dye that fades only as the nail grows out.

What Balsam means

The flower carries a lot of feeling in East Asian song. Hong Nan-pa's 1919 song Bongseonhwa, called Korea's first Western-style song, likens a spent autumn balsam to Korea under Japanese colonial rule, with the hope of spring. South Korean films and dramas, among them the 1956 film A Touch-Me-Not, take the flower's name. The Okinawan folk song Tinsagu Nu Hana compares children colouring their nails with balsam to the way parents shape a child's mind.

Where Balsam is used and seen

Hanging basketA suspended container for growing and displaying flowering plantsBach flower remediesDiluted flower extracts used in a remedy system created by Edward Bach

Traditions that use it

Where to see Balsam

🇮🇩 Ubud · All yearMake canang sari in BaliLearn to weave the small palm-leaf and flower offerings that Balinese Hindus lay out every day.

Questions people ask about Balsam

Good reading and sources

• Encyclopaedia BritannicaArticle
• USDA Plants DatabaseUS Department of Agriculture, Article
• Plants of the World OnlineRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Plant database
• Where it has been recordedGBIF, Plant database
• Sightings and photos by naturalistsiNaturalist, Plant database

• Impatiens balsamina on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos
• Wikidata recordOpen data