Wildflowers: Jewelweed

Far Guy is a jewel of a guy, he cooks most of the time and we split the housework..

One day a few years ago I came home from town, probably after a horrible grocery shopping experience and he was cleaning up the ceiling.  Now why in the world was he washing the ceiling?  He had a hair brained idea, he had ordered a whole bunch of Jewelweed off of the Internet..it was fresh..so he put it in the blender and made a slurry out of it..except he doesn’t have a license to run a blender..so of course the top came off and green goo covered the ceiling and many other things too.   The green goo that did not end up on the ceiling ended up in the fridge.   Some of that green goo was mixed with a liquid soap, I was instructed to use it for my poison ivy..well low and behold green goo works to stop the itch and the spread of the dreaded Poison Ivy.  He tried to talk me into doing a more scientific study where I would rub Poison Ivy on both of my arms and wash one with Jewelweed green goo and leave the other untreated.. well I may be a bit of an adventurous sort sometimes..but I am no dummy.

Jewelweed or Impatiens pallida grows wild here in Minnesota. It likes to grow near the lakes. It is a native plant.  It is also called Touch-me-Not, this fits it perfectly.  The seed pods shoot seeds in all directions if they are touched.  It’s thick fleshy stems hold the green goo. I have found both the yellow colored variety and the orange spotted variety.  The orange seems to grow taller than the yellow.

Far Guy showed Adam how the seedpods explode when they are touched..Adam thought it was pretty cool.  Far Guy took a few stems filled with green goo to a local soap maker..his idea of having his own Jewelweed soap may again become a reality one of these days.  He told the soap maker if she put it into a blender to make sure the lid was securely in place:)