Jewelweed

A Jewel Among Flowers

My long term followers may recall my ongoing plot to take over part of my side yard with jewelweed. Two years ago, I dug up 3 plants from my mom's house, where they are plentiful, and I watered and cared for them. I didn't think they'd make it, as every day they wilted as though they'd been transplanted to the Sarah, rather than a shady patch of yard near where they started. But they survived and flowered and popped their seeds all over and last year I had many jewelweeds emerge and go through their entire life cycle with no help from me. This spring, the seedlings were so plentiful and had spread so far that some had to be annihilated due to their pathway location.

However, the long hot and dry spell was not good for my jewelweeds. I had pretty much taken to ignoring them, and their whole part of the yard, which is overgrown but generally takes care of itself well enough. When I noticed that many of the jewelweeds weren't faring well, it was already too late for many of them. (The fern area right next to the jewelweed area suffered a similar fate, for the first time in 8 years...) Anyhow, a few of them did survive to flower, but not that many. Not as many as last year. So we'll see how things go. Meanwhile, they are still going strong at my mom's house, where the flower sketched above from many angles grew.

My Jewelweed Forest

First, I would like to say that my plot to take over my side yard with jewelweed is coming along quite nicely. I have many plants and they are starting to flower, as shown here. What I especially love about this photo, though, is the mosquito perched on the flower. I like that because that is one mosquito that was not perched on me as I was trying to take pictures of the flower. Because it seemed as though the rest of them were. Really annoying. I can still hear the buzzing in my ears...

It's Just Galling!

This is one of my favorite periodic occurrences because it is just so strange. The cedar trees which, for most of the year have unremarkable brown growths on their branches, suddenly look as though they're carrying bright orange, slimy pompoms. And right now, they look like their game got rained out, because the recent rain has bogged down the usual gelatinous koosh-ball appearance of them. They are cedar-apple rust galls, but these galls are a totally different animal than the goldenrod and oak galls about which I wrote in the fall. Actually, these galls aren't an animal at all. But they are still called a gall because they, like the insect galls, cause the plant itself to form growths of its own tissue. Technically, cedar-apple rust galls are a pest and bad, but I think they are fascinating. This orange phenophase is when the rust is sending out spores into the wind... where they land on an apple (or similar) tree and infect it. On these hosts, they cause bright orange leaf spots, and eventually, later in summer, they also bear spores, which in turn land on cedar trees and cause their branch growths. Quite a life cycle!

Also just starting to bloom:
cream indigo, and
bladder campion.

In sad (for Naomi) news... some of my carefully cultivated Jewelweeds have bitten the dust. This is through no fault of their own, or nature, or me... I have these neighbor kids. They are nice, curious, and sometimes mischievous children. They play outside a lot (of which I approve). They play in my yard more often than I'd approve of, especially on the day when one of them ate a poisonous jack in the pulpit berry because it "looked like red corn"... but that's another story for another day. Anyhow, we've had many chats about not stepping on plants. Well, yesterday, the area between our two houses was a lake from all the water, and on my side of the lake is where the jewelweeds grow among the daylilies. They were playing in the lake with boats or somesuch and needed to go on my side. The daylilies are quite large, the jewelweeds still small spindly things... so they very carefully stepped around all the daylilies. They were actually so proud of themselves they called me over. "Look, Ms. Naomi, we didn't step on any of the plants!" Well, OK... but these little ones were plants, too and you stepped all over them! I did show them; we'll see if it still happens again. Anyhow, I hope the remaining ones will spread a lot of seeds again, and eventually... those kids will grow up.

... And Today.

You may recall that last year, I transplanted three jewelweed seedlings from my parents house. Seeds themselves are extremely hard to collect, what with their springing mechanism, so I dug up the plants, which did not like their journey but manages to perk back up and survive. I am thrilled to announce that this baby, pictures to the left, is not alone. There are at least 20 of them growing now in the area of the three original pioneers. My plan is working!

Now, I know these aren't the world's most desired garden plants... they have the word "weed" in their name, although they aren't. In fact, they are native to most of the USA east of the Rockies. Their delicate flowers truly are jewel-like, and they are not only shade-tolerant, but generally tolerant and require no work from me... Thus, I desire them as garden plants even if no one else does. Of course, they spread fast (as I have already witnessed) and they're annuals, so they need an appropriate space...

Maples (sugar, to the left) and their evil kin boxelders (below) are fully flowering, most green, though some species are have red, too. These individuals have leaves emerging as well -- their lobed shapes nearly translucent with newness. Such an exciting time of year.

Now I must attend to my seedlings, which are enjoying their third adventure in the fresh air and sunshine this afternoon.

Diamonds in the Rough

Jewelweed. This is one of the first flowers on the jewelweeds that I transplanted from my parents' house this year. Jewelweed is an annual, so the plants themselves won't come back. The hope is that, if the location is good, their seeds will spread and next year I will have even more jewelweed without any work. I'll have to wait until next year to find out if my area is moist enough for them. (I'm pretty sure its shady enough).

Jewelweed. It's an interesting name to me. Jewel -- valuable, beautiful. Jewel tones are bright colors (and the flowers are bright orange). This part of the common name may refer to how the flowers hang down like pendants, or to the way water droplets sit on their leaves, or perhaps just to the treat of tiny orange dots among the solid green of the forest in mid-July. Weed -- unwanted, fast-growing. The two parts of its name juxtapose each other. Probably some people think they're undesirable, but I love jewelweed (as is obvious based on the fact that I transplanted some to my yard).

They have other names, too. Touch-me-not. Impatiens. Snapweed. Probably these other common names and the Latin genus name all refer to the fun seed dispersal methods of the plant. After flowering -- and the flowers are interesting, too... each flower has a male phase with pollen and then a female phase with an exposed pistil. The plants will have many flowers in different stages of bloom; insects will brush against the pollen when they seek nectar from a flower in its male phase, and deposit said pollen if they happen to enter a female flower. The nectar is way back there... Anyhow. After flowering, little seed pods will form. When something brushes up against a pod -- or even if a wind causes it to brush up against a leaf or stem -- it will pop open, spreading seeds everywhere. They are the ultimate poppers!

Many people know jewelweed as the poison ivy plant. The oils in the plant's stem will counteract the oils in poison ivy for some people, making it a cure for the itchiness of PI. People even say that the two tend to grow together. This is only partly true... PI tends to grow in a lot of places and be a pretty adaptable forest dweller. So near jewelweed, there is often PI. But there is also often PI where there is no jewelweed around. The truth of the matter is, where there's poison ivy, it grows near every other plant!

Almost

A sketch from last year that accurately reflects the current status of Solomon's seal, both false and "real."

Almost

A Free Verse Poem for Today

note:  I certainly don't fancy myself a poet, but every once in a while, the poetic urge strikes.  When it does, as now, I don't squelch it, as many do, or claim to be a bad poet.  Indeed, I don't believe there is such a thing as a bad poet... although I'm sure some professional poets disagree, for the sake of job security, if nothing else.  That said... 

Almost

A Free Verse Poem for Today

Almost columbine,

Almost lily of the valley,

Almost warm,

Almost May apple,

Almost Jack in his pulpit.

A single, early dandelion seed floats by, 

A lazy parachute 

With its passenger dangling, 

Swaying gently,

Aiming for the garden. 

Almost relaxing.

In my mom's yard, jewelweed pops up in droves.  This week they were between 1/2 and 3 inches tall.  She let me dig some up and transfer them to my yard, where I have planted them among the day lilies.  I hope they will grow and thrive and spread their popper seeds all over and eventually, proliferate and out-compete the day lilies.  Weedy though they may be, I quite love the small orange touch-me-not flowers, irregular and hidden under thick leaves to those who don't bother to look for them, and their exploding seed pods... who wouldn't love those!

Pussytoes, golden Alexander, bedstraw.

Also sighted today:  swallowtail butterfly, redbud leaf out, mistflowers finally emerging but very tiny.  No sign of butterfly milkweed yet -- I am hoping this isn't because mine all failed, in 3 separate locations at home (and also in school gardens).  With so many samples, this seems unlikely.  

Yesterday:  mayfly, seen by fivecrows