along the country road #5
Not far from where I live is a new road, built a few years ago along the edge of a field. When it was first built, it was a scar on the land, its ditches unlovely smears of muck.
This year, the weeds of the roadside have moved in to fill the empty spaces with green. At one place, where the new road joins the old, it is particularly wet and the ditches have been overwhelmed with a green and orange explosion of Jewel Weed.
Jewel Weed growing with cattails in a wet ditch
a profusion of Jewel Weed
The botanist, Nicolaas Meerburgh, who first named the plant, called it capensis, meaning “of the cape” since he wrongly thought it had been introduced from the Cape of Good Hope into European gardens.
Jewel Weed (Impatiens capensis Meerb.)
Jewel Weed
Impatiens capensis Meerb.
~
Jewel Weed
orange and green
tangled in the gully
spotted spurred
impatiente
for a visit
from a hummingbird
~
Jewel Weed
not used as gems
for lady’s ears
not (after all)
from the Cape
of Good Hope-
Celandine tends
to mope
~
Jewel Weed
pendulant
petulant
“Touch-me-not!
or I fling
seeds from my pods
into the spring”
~
© Jane Tims
nichepoetryandprose 
Enjoyed your playful poem and the lovely pictures. Is this wild impatiens related to the cultivated impatiens we buy for our shade gardens at the nursery?
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Barbara Rodgers
August 19, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Hi. Yes, they are the same species. The leaves are very similar. I think the flowers vary quite a bit from species to species. Jane
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jane tims
August 19, 2011 at 10:21 pm
One of my favorite wildflowers! In my area, the yellow variety is somewhat more prevalent than the orange, but it is all quite beautiful. Bees love it too.
Very interesting story about its Latin name!
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Watching Seasons
August 16, 2011 at 7:46 pm
Hi. Glad you stopped by. I am a botanist and interested in plant taxonomy, hence the focus on the derivation of the names. Jane
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jane tims
August 16, 2011 at 9:39 pm