It’s always intriguing to find a plant that’s native near our American home in Pennsylvania growing near our English base in Northamptonshire (and vice versa) and the other day a stroll by the River Nene not far from our Northamptonshire house provided an enjoyable surprise. Spotted touch-me-not or jewelweed, Impatiens capensis, was growing on the bank (below, click to enlarge).

There were only a few patches, all grouped near each other, and I wondered for a moment if I myself had inadvertently introduced it on my shoes as perhaps I did in Pennsylvania when it suddenly it turned up in our garden. I walk this same stretch of river every time I’m back in England.

Mike Grant, editor of the Royal Horticultural Society magazine The Plantsman, pointed out in a comment on my piece about this plant turning up in the garden that “it has the distinction of first being recorded in the wild by the philosopher, John Stuart Mill (in Surrey in 1822)” and it is now well established in Britain, though mostly a little farther south and west from where I came across it.

In fact, we’d been thinking that perhaps we have the wrong native Impatiens in our Pennsylvania garden. Touch-me-not, Impatiens pallida, is bright yellow instead of red-speckled orange and would show up more effectively from a distance. Tomorrow I’m going to collect some seed from the plants that I’ve seen a few miles from our PA home. In which case look out for it in Northamptonshire a few years from now!

Thoughts on another non-native Impatiens species next time.