Popping Seeds!

Yellow jewelweed flower and seed pod (photo from Wikimedia) 26 August 2026 It’s seed-popping time in Schenley Park. On Friday my friend Andrea and I found a large stand of yellow jewelweed (Impatiens pallida) along the Upper Trail with seed pods in pop-ready condition. The outer skin of ripe, swollen seed pods is spring loaded so that a mere touch is enough to make the casings curl and fling the seeds. One of my favorite activities is to gently touch a seed pod from below, testing to see how light a touch will pop the seeds into my cupped hand. I try this experiment on just a few seed pods and leave the rest for Nature or for my own a later visit. Popped! Yellow jewelweed seeds and opened seed pods, Schenley Park, 21 August 2026 (photo by Kate St. John) Last Friday’s pops were extra special because deer had eradicated this activity from Schenley Park for 10 years. Since 2016 the deer population had been so high that they ate all the easy-to-reach jewelweed. Yellow jewelweed eaten by…