The flowers smell sickly sweet, and, according to some, the crushed stems and leaves smell like Jeyes Fluid. The seed pods, when ripe and touched, suddenly release pent-up elastic energy, catapulting the seeds out up to a distance of 12 metres. It thus readily spreads, especially beside streams where the seeds can be transported by the flowing water.

There are some saving graces to this plant: it looks nice when in flower (which is why it was imported into this country many decades ago), and the flowers attract many bees, which in recent years have been seen a drastic and worrying decline since they are the main pollinators of some flowers (and crops).

It is recounted that children used to carefully collect a handful of ripe seed pods and then squeeze them. This triggered their explosive curling and felt like a lot of wriggling squirming worms within the closed hand. The seeds, which number 5 to 10 within one pod, can be flung out at such high speed that they are thrown up to 5 metres. If they land in flowing water, they will be carried to pastures new, but always near water, for the plant likes dampish ground.

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