Medicinal Monday...Spotted Jewelweed

Impatiens capensis, commonly called Spotted Jewelweed or Spotted Touch Me Not is a summer-blooming wildflower that can be found in two-thirds of the U.S. and Canada including Connecticut.  It is a pretty flower whose orange petals hang like pendants from their stems and seem to glimmer in the summer sunlight. This plant was used traditionally by Native American communities to cure or relieve a variety of ailments. 

About Touch Me Not

Spotted Touch Me Not is a tall erect plant that can reach up to five feet in height. It grows in along stream and pond banks, in marshes and swamps in thickets and woods. The stems are hairless and if broken, juice flows out of them. The oval leaves have low, widely spaced teeth and grow one leaf per node. The leaves have a coating that repels water - if the water doesn't roll off, it beads up and gleams like tiny jewels when the sun hits them. It is not known why the leaves are waterproof. When they are submerged in water they have a silver sheen. Spotted Touch Me Not has two types of flowers, the first flower people notice is the dangling showy flower shaped like a cornucopia that is bright orange with dark reddish brown spots on a yellow/orange base. The second flower is small and almost not noticeable because it doesn't open. The fruit of this flower are pale green pods that spring apart when touched. There are three to five brown seeds in each pod. The seeds begin to germinate in April and May and bloom in the summer months.

Medicinal Uses

The most common use of this plant was to treat dermatological problems from rashes and cuts to burns, sprains, and bruises. The juice of this plant whether in its original raw form as juice or made into an infusion, compound decoction, or poultice was used by the Cherokee, Chippewa, Iroquois, Meskwaki, Mohegan, Nanticoke, Omaha, and Potawatomi to treat rashes from poison ivy and sumac to ezema, cuts, sprains, and bruises.  The Mohegan, Nanticoke, Penobscot, and Shinnecock made a poultice or salve of crushed flower buds, sometimes mixed with rum, and applied this mixture to burns and bruises. The Iroquois,   Malecite, and Micmac made a compound decoction and used it as a wash for liver spots and jaundice. The Cherokee crushed the leaves and rubbed them on a child's stomach to ease a stomachache, they used a decoction of the stems to ease childbirth and made an infusion of the leaves to treat measles. The Iroquois drank an infusion of the roots to increase urination and made a poultice of smashed stems to treat sore eyes. The Ojibwa used the fresh juice from the stems to treat headaches and the Potawatomi made an infusion of the entire plant to treat stomach cramps and as a liniment for sprains.

Another use of this plant was to make an orange or yellow dye from it. The Potawatomi and Ojibwa have been documented as doing this. The Cherokee used this plant as an ingredient in green corn medicine.

Did You Know...

The genus name, Impatiens is the Latin word for impatience and refers to the seeds shooting out of it when the plant is in full bloom. 

The species name, capensis is a reference to the Cape of Good Hope, because it was thought to have originated there.

The nickname Jewelweed is thought to have been coined by the way water collects like "jewels" at the edges of the leaves.

Other common names include Silver Leaf, Silver Cap, and Lady's Eardrops.

Some modern herbal sources note that Spotted Touch Me Not is an effective remedy for poison ivy and poison sumac because the stem contains compounds that neutralize urushiol, which causes these rashes.

The nectar of the Touch Me Not flower is a main source of food for the Ruby Throated Hummingbird.

Bees, butterflies, grasshoppers, and beetles are also attracted to this plant.

White Tail Deer, Ruffed Grouse, and Red Neck Pheasants eat the seeds.