The Playful Jewelweed, or 'Touch-Me-Not'

This delightful plant is plaything, purported medicine, and mesmerizing beauty all wrapped in one. Impatiens capensis is often also called Touch-Me-Not, due to its amazing seed-pods.

Jewelweed's extraordinary properties are many. They begin with its orange, spotted flowers, orchid-like in their beauty. The leaves are one of the most lovely repositories of water opals -- drops of dew that shine with silvery light. Look in the morning or in the sunlight after a rainfall. The leaves make such wonderful water opals because of their jewel-like appearance under water. Without looking under a microscope, we surmised that tiny hairs probably trap air on the leaf's surface, giving it an unearthly sheen.

                 A flowering Jewelweed

This magical property, which probably gives Jewelweed its name, is perhaps most fabulously observed when you hold the leaf under water.                                      

                                                                                                                                           Shimmering Beauty

Most fun of all are the jewelweed's seed-pods, which can occupy children or passionate adults for hours. These pods begin thin and tough, but then swell up until they are near bursting. When at their prime, you'll see dark spots under the pale green flesh of the pod. This is when it's time to play.

                                                                                                 
     Careful where you tread, beetle -- you might be in for a surprise!

The slightest brush against a ripe seed pod will burst it, sending its seeds in all directions.  Touch them, or if they don't pop, squeeze very gently, and see what happens . . .

If the seed-pod's not quite at its prime, it takes a slight pressure between the fingers to pop a pod, but if you find a plant at just the right time, it might be nothing more than a beetle's footsteps or a soft breeze bumping the pod against a leaf that sends the seeds flying.                                                                                                              Three seeds, and the pods' secret revealed.

The crushed stems of jewelweed, which hold an aloe-like juice, have long been used as a remedy for the itch of poison ivy and nettles. In our own tests, Jewelweed doesn't offer much relief (poison ivy's itch is more easily dealt with via the water treatment), though many people swear by it. Nettle stings go away after a few minutes anyway, and with the water treatment for poison ivy, there is little reason to crush these lovely plants.

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