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.
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