Jewelweed has to be one of the wateriest plants in existence. If you doubt it, just hold some of it between yourself and a light source, preferably the sun. Even its thick main stems are so translucent you know for sure that as soon as the first frost sweeps down the valley, this gorgeous, juicy plant will be among the first to freeze, crumple, and fall.
How fitting that jewelweed should be in the Impatiens family! It has that same succulent quality as the domestic Impatiens, looking as if it has been thoughtfully constructed of pale green ice. And it is remarkably impatient to reproduce. Its slender green seedpods, when ripe, can’t wait until they dry up to drop their seeds, as do many other pod-bearing plants. When jewelweed seeds are ready, the slightest touch will explode the pod, instantly peel its sides down like a miniature banana, and send the tiny green seeds flying everywhere. No matter how many times you do it, the surprise of this little green firecracker going off (it’s also called touch-me-not) brings you back to try it every year just for the startled delight it brings when it pops open faster than you can see it.
Ironically, this plant that looks like stretched green water will not let itself get wet. In her 1931 bible for herbalists, A Modern Herbal, Mrs. M. Grieve tells us that the leaves of jewelweed turn silver when thrust underwater (hence one of its many other names, silverweed), and nothing can get water to stick to it. If you’re paying attention, a stand of jewelweed right after it rains will stop you in your tracks. Any water droplets balanced on the plants’ leaves or in their bamboo-like joints quiver and shine like mercury.
In similar fashion one recent morning, the sun pouring in my bedroom window arrested me, luring me away from housekeeping. I held my hand up for a moment to see if the light would still shine through as it used to. During outdoor overnights in the back yard as a child, in the pitch dark of a heavy canvas tent, my brother and I would cup our fingers over a lit flashlight. With that extra illumination, our flesh was amazingly see-through.
It still works. Now, though my grown-up hands are bigger and thicker, the sunlight still shines pinkly through them, especially where my fingers met.
Like jewelweed, we humans are mostly H2O. And all the same physical laws apply. Whatever else we humans are, we are also walking, talking, singing bits of seawater. And someday, some way, we will all again become part of the giant ocean we came from.