Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: Spotted touch-me-not aka Jewelweed
I was recently on a bicycle ride with a friend along a trail the city created. They did a really nice job of weaving it through wooded areas and open spaces. It was also fun to see all the native plants including helianthus laetiflorus aka cheerful sunflower…
…and solidago aka goldenrod. Which is NOT the plant that makes you sneeze!
But then there was this little jewel of a flower you had to look for to see it. I took pictures of all the plants and then looked up what this little yellow/orange spotted flower was that looked like an orchid.
It’s called Jewelweed aka Spotted Touch-me-not. It’s Latin name is impatiens capensis. Spotted or orange jewelweed is a native annual that thrives in moist or wet soils.
Its shiny, dangling flowers and the beads of water that collect on its leaves glisten like jewels in the sun.
Impatiens is Latin for “impatient,” describing the capsules’ explosive release of ripe seeds. Touch a mature capsule and it will burst in your hand, hence the common name touch-me-not. It grows 2 to 5 ft tall and flowers from July through September. While the flowers are small, especially among some of the larger plants, there are plenty of them.
The above two photos were in one sequence on the University of Wisconsin Extension website (link above). This is the explanation of the stages from pod (top left pic) to seed (bottom right pic)
Pollinated flowers form a fruit (L) that when mature (second from left and LC) bursts (RC) leaving the curled up sections of the capsule (second from R) and forcibly ejecting the green seeds (R).
When you’re taking a walk or hiking or bicycling, what do YOU see? Are you paying attention to little details? There’s magic everywhere!
