This beautiful flowering plant is native to North America and is commonly found around creeks
This is a hoverfly standing on the flower of a touch-me-not plant. This plant is also knowns as orange jewelweed, orange balsam, or common jewelweed. This beautiful flowering plant is native to North America and is commonly found around creeks. In fact, this photograph was taken along a creek in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Touch-me-not will grow to about three to five feet tall. Why is it called a touch-me-not? The seed pods of this plant have a unique mechanism for dispersion. If lightly touched, these seed pods explode and disperse. Despite the name, you can eat the touch-me-not plant. The seeds are edible. You can also boil the young shoots of the plant (two changes of water recommended).
Native Americans used touch-me-not for medical purposes. If you press the juice out of the leaves and stems you can use this juice to treat poison ivy and other skin rashes. People have found the stem juice to be effective in treating athlete’s foot.
Hoverflies are harmless small undervalued pollinators. As they appear in this photo, they are typical fly sized. They are found on every continent except Antarctica. As the name suggests, they hover around flowers. Adult hoverflies feed on nectar and pollen. They have clear wings and large amber compound eyes. If you look closely, you will see they have a protruding beak coming off their head!
Hoverfly movements are similar to a hummingbird or dragonfly. Their appearance mimics a wasp or bee. This mimicry may be by design. Hoverflies are black with three yellow stripes on their abdomen. This look might confuse other creatures into thinking this hoverfly can sting like the wasp or bee it looks like. I believe this to be an American hoverfly which migrate from Canada to the southeast United States during the fall.
Hoverflies are important pollinators because they visit a variety of wild plants and commercial crops. Hoverflies roles as pollinators doesn’t get the attention that bees get. The belief is that bees with their larger bodies and hair are better carriers of pollen. However, if a hoverfly were to make more flower trips than a bee, perhaps the hoverfly could compensate for their lack of body size and be an equally important pollinator? This has yet to be determined, and is a hot topic for research right now.
Ultimately, the shape of the flower determines what species will pollinate it. The unique shape of the touch-me-not flower lends it to be pollinated by bumblebees, hoverflies, and hummingbirds. Here is a photo of the hoverfly inside the touch-me-not flower.
The shape of the flower determines what species will pollinate it
Did you know?
- There are over 6000 species of hoverfly across the world!
- Hoverflies only live from a few days to a few weeks.
- Hoverfly larvae feed on aphids (tiny sap sucking insects).
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