EARDROPS SNAP WEED WILD LADY'S SLIPPER
(Impatiens biflora; I. fulva of Gray) Jewel-weed family
Flowers - Orange yellow, spotted with reddish-brown, irregular, 1
in. long or less, horizontal, 2 to 4 pendent by slender
footstalks on a long peduncle from leaf axils. Sepals, 3,
colored; 1 large, sac-shaped, contracted
into a slender incurved
spur and 2-toothed at apex; 2 other sepals small. Petals, 3; 2 of
them 2-cleft into dissimilar lobes; 5 short stamens, 1 pistil.
Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, branched, colored, succulent.
Leaves: Alternate, thin, pale beneath, ovate, coarsely toothed,
petioled. Fruit: An oblong capsule, its 5 valves opening
elastically to expel the seeds.
Preferred Habitat - Beside streams, ponds, ditches; moist ground.
Flowering Season - July-October.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Oregon, south to Missouri and
Florida.
These exquisite, bright flowers, hanging at a horizontal, like
jewels from a lady's ear, may be responsible for the plant's folk
name; but whoever is abroad early on a dewy morning, or after a
shower, and finds notched edges of the drooping leaves hung with
scintillating gems, dancing, sparkling in the sunshine, sees
still another reason for naming this the jewel-weed. In a brook,
pond, spring, or wayside trough, which can never be far from its
haunts, dip a spray of the plant to transform the leaves into
glistening silver. They shed water much as the nasturtium's do.
When the tiny ruby-throated hummingbird flashes northward out of
the tropics to spend the summer, where can he hope to find nectar
so deeply secreted that not even the long-tongued bumblebee may
rob him of it all? Beyond the bird's bill his tongue can be run
out and around curves no other creature can reach. Now the early
blooming columbine, its slender cornucopias brimming with sweets,
welcomes the messenger whose needle-like bill will carry pollen
from flower to flower; presently the coral honeysuckle and the
scarlet painted-cup attract him by wearing his favorite color;
next the jewel-weed hangs horns of plenty to lure his eye; and
the trumpet vine and cardinal flower continue to feed him
successively in Nature's garden; albeit cannas, nasturtiums,
salvia, gladioli, and such deep, irregular showy flowers in men's
flower beds sometimes lure him away. These are bird flowers
dependent in the main on the ruby-throat, which is not to say
that insects never enter them, for they do; only they are not the
visitors catered to. Watch the big, velvety bumblebee approach a
roomy jewel-weed blossom and nearly disappear within. The large
bunch of united stamens, suspended directly over the entrance,
bears copious white pollen. So much comes off on his back that
after visiting a flower or two he becomes annoyed; clings to a
leaf with his fore legs while he thoroughly brushes his back and
wings with his middle and hind pairs, and then collects the
sticky grains into a wad on his feet which he presently kicks off
with disgust to the ground. Examine a jewel-weed blossom to see
that the clumsy bumblebee's pollen-laden back is not so likely to
come in contact with the short five-parted stigma concealed
beneath the stamens, as a hummingbird's slender bill that is
thrust obliquely into the spur while he hovers above.
But, as if the plant had not sufficient confidence in its
visitors to rely exclusively on them for help in continuing the
lovely species, it bears also cleistogamous blossoms that never
open - economical products without petals, which ripen abundant
self-fertilized seed (see white wood sorrel). It is calculated
that each jewel-weed blossom produces about two hundred and fifty
pollen grains; yet each is by no means able to produce seed in
spite of its prodigality. Nevertheless, enough cross-fertilized
seed is set to save the species from the degeneracy that follows
close inbreeding among plants as well as animals. In England,
where this jewel-weed is rapidly becoming naturalized, Darwin
recorded there are twenty plants producing cleistogamous flowers
to one having showy blossoms which, even when produced, seldom
set seed. What more likely, since hummingbirds are confined to
the New World? Therefore why should the plant waste its energy on
a product useless in England? It can never attain perfection
there until hummingbirds are imported, as bumblebees had to be
into Australia before the farmers could harvest seed from their
clover fields (see red clover).
Familiar as we may be with the nervous little seedpods of the
touch-me-not, which children ever love to pop and see the seeds
fly, as they do from balsam pods in grandmother's garden, they
still startle with the suddenness of their volley. Touch the
delicate hair-trigger at the end of a capsule, and the lightning
response of the flying seeds makes one jump. They sometimes land
four feet away. At this rate of progress a year, and with the
other odds against which all plants have to contend, how many
generations must it take to fringe even one mill pond with
jewel-weed; yet this is rapid transit indeed compared with many
of Nature's processes. The plant is a conspicuous sufferer from
the dodder (q.v.).
The PALE TOUCH-ME-NOT (I. aurea; I. pallida of Gray) most
abundant northward, a larger, stouter species found in similar
situations, but with paler yellow flowers only sparingly dotted
if at all, has its broader sac-shaped sepal abruptly contracted
into a short, notched, but not incurved spur. It shares its
sister's popular names.
Previous: JEWELWEED SPOTTED TOUCHMENOT: SILVER CAP WILD BALSAM: LADY'S
Next: VELVET LEAF INDIAN MALLOW AMERICAN JUTE
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