I'm so far behind on posting pictures/notes for our 100 Species Challenge that I'd blush except for the fact that I'm enjoying crawling along at turtle-pace. The pace seems to fit the way I find myself looking at the world these days: longer, more slowly, with real attention. At the rate I'm going, I may finish this project in time for my 50th birthday (that gives me about 8 1/2 more years...)
And I'm going to have to fudge this entry a bit because I don't have an original picture of the plant. I promise you that I did see it, back in September when we picked wildflowers at a nearby park.
Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, and though I dutifully picked a small, fragile jewelweed (or to be honest, had Dana pick it, as he was wearing long pants and sneakers and could traipse into the undergrowth to get it for me) it had faded completely by the time we got home. I guess there's a reason these flowers are sometimes called "Spotted Touch-Me-Nots" (Impatiens capensis).
But you can see a lovely close-up photo here. It reminds me of a cross between a miniature tiger lily and an elongated violet.
I found this picture -- and the identification of the flower -- at the terrific website mywildflowers.com. It specifically tracks wildflowers in my region (western PA) and I love the search engine, where you can look things up by color, leaf or petal shape, month sighted, region, common name, scientific name, and many other ways (sometimes in combination). I found the jewelweed's orange color and delicate spots quite striking, so this was easy: I entered orange for color and September for month sighted, and was able to ID the flower in a matter of seconds. I hope other areas of the country have websites like this one!
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