LADY’S SLIPPER.
In the garden grows a relative of our jewelweed. It is called the “garden balsam,” and sometimes “lady’s slipper.”
Its own home is far-off India.
Its flowers are larger than those of the jewelweed and are not yellow, but white or red or pink, and sometimes pink and white spotted. In shape, however, it is very like the jewelweed; it hides its pistil beneath the anthers in the same way and snaps its seeds afar.
Its flowers grow double and close to the stalk, and it makes a fine show in the garden in the fall of the year.
There is one thing I should like very much to know, and that is, just when and how this Indian balsam and its cousin the North American jewelweed got separated.
Way, way back, farther back than the building of the pyramids, these two plants must have had the same ancestors. Now, where did those ancestors live? In India? In America? Somewhere between? And what caused them finally to get so widely separated?
Who is going to tell us?
For over two hundred and fifty years the Indian balsam has been cultivated as a garden plant, and no doubt this long cultivation has done much to bring about changes. Still, its resemblance to the jewelweed is quite unmistakable, and we cannot doubt the relationship of the two.