The starkly differing flower shapes found in this genus, combined with the easy cultivation of many species, have served to make some balsam species model organisms in plant evolutionary developmental biology. Also, "Impatiens" is rather closely related to the carnivorous plant families Roridulaceae and Sarraceniaceae. Peculiar stalked glands found on balsam sepals secrete mucus and might be related to the structures from which the prey-catching and -digesting glands of these carnivorous plants evolved. Balsams are not known to be protocarnivorous plants, however.