3. Impatiens pallida Nutt. (jewelweed, pale touch-me-not)

Pl. 301 e–g; Map 1268

Plants glabrous. Stems 30–150 cm long, usually somewhat glaucous. Leaves 2–22 cm long, the blade ovate to elliptic, narrowed or tapered to the short or long petiole, narrowed to the bluntly or sharply pointed tip, the margins coarsely to finely scalloped or bluntly toothed, the teeth usually ending in minute, sharp points, the basal portion (but not the petiole) sometimes with few to several small-stalked, dark-colored glands, the leaf surfaces somewhat glaucous. Inflorescences of solitary flowers or more commonly of small panicles of 2–5 flowers, these lemon yellow, with or without red spots. Spurred sepal with the pouched portion 10–19 mm long, broadly conical, about as long as wide or slightly longer than wide, the slender spur 4–6 mm long, bent abruptly to somewhat recurved, usually appearing to spread at about a right angle to the sepal body. Fruits 1.4–2.0 cm long, elliptic to oblanceolate in outline. Seeds 5–6 mm long, elliptic-ovate in outline, the tip nipplelike or beaklike, strongly and irregularly 4-angled, the surface with a network of low ridges, sometimes appearing irregularly warty, dark brown. 2n=20. June–September.

Scattered to common nearly throughout Missouri, probably more common than specimens indicate (eastern U.S. west to North Dakota and Oklahoma; Canada). Banks of streams, rivers, spring branches, and sloughs, margins of ponds and sinkhole ponds, swamps, bottomland forests, and bases of bluffs.

For notes on the pollination biology and relationships to I. capensis, see the treatment of that species. Rare color forms of I. pallida include f. dichroma Steyerm., first described from Missouri, with the saccate sepal mostly yellow and the petals white. Plants with creamy-white flowers (f. speciosa Jenn.) have not been recorded from Missouri thus far.