Jewelweed

The orange jewelweed is blooming.   It's freckled and speckled and screaming orange against the dark green leaves.   It's an annual around here, but spreads easily and blooms profusely from late July until frost.   It's an Impatiens - like the ubiquitous pink, white and red ones you find at the beginning of the season in every garden center.   These are so much more interesting.





They're about the size of the tip of your thumb to the first knuckle.  Here's a pic of the side of one with the bud of a second just above it.

You can use the sap to treat poison ivy.   Just crush the stems and apply it to the affected area.

I just recently read where someone is using jewelweed to seal a pond. Follow the links in the piece to the full story - it's really interesting.

Jewelweed - Touch Me Not

One of my favorite late summer flowers is jewelweed, also called touch-me-not.    It grows in the ditches and damp places in the bottoms and along creek sides.   They are our local impatiens - only more exotic looking than the pink and white ones you get at the garden store.  

We have two species: Impatiens pallida, which is yellow; and Impatiens capensis, which is orange with spots.    They are both native to North America.

The yellow one, Pale Touch-Me-Not shows up in limestone regions and southern Indiana is one of the foremost limestone regions in the world.   We're famous for our limestone.  

And our touch-me-not. 

The orange jewelweed is the most common jewelweed.   There's a lot of healing lore around it - though none of that has been officially tested.  [Few native plants have been officially investigated, but that doesn't mean they don't work, only that the medical establishment prefers other sources for medicines, etc.]

Jewelweed's most common homeopathic use is to treat skin ailments such as poison ivy.   The stems of the plant are fleshy and when crushed, impart a lovely cooling gel similar to aloe.  

The common name 'touch-me-not' comes from the fact that the ripe seed pods explode when touched, shooting the seeds out and about.  I've never tried it, but it sounds kind of fun.