Wednesday, 7:45 AM. 46 degrees, wind SW, moderate with gusts. The channel is crawling. The sky is mostly clear, and the barometer predicts partly cloudy skies. We had a brief, hard shower yesterday afternoon that left four-tenths of an inch of rain, and brought much cooler, less humid air.The white flowered plats are of course the elephant ears, the Japanese knotweed we have discussed before. One can almost forgive the USDA botanists who first saw it covering Chinese mountainsides for introducing it. All we can say is, here is a prime example of the law of unintended consequences.
The delicate orange flowered plant is jewelweed or touch-me-not, Impatiens biflora, a native plant of wet places, damp ditches, etc. The genus and common names both allude to the fact that the ripe seed pods, when touched, shoot the hard little seeds forcefully out quite a distance, and little kids and big kids alike get a kick out of firing off the little artillery pieces. The ample juice of the stems is an effective antidote for the discomfort of poison ivy, a fact that should be known by all who spend a lot of time outdoors. All parts of the plant are toxic, however, and should not be ingested.
Whereas yesterday seemed the last day of summer, today seems the first day of fall.
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