74 



FLOWERS OF THE HEATHS AND MOORS 



Scabious, Red Rattle, CommiMi Sylvan Cow-wl-'eat, and Heath Hair 



Grass. 



This is an erect, slender, tall-stemmed plant, smooth, with similar 



branches, which are few and distant, the stem-leaves heart-shaped to 



egg-shaped, shining, rigid, clasp- 

 ing, perforate, the upper ones 

 not so long. The plant gene- 

 rally grows in isolated patches. 

 The flowers are in loose 

 cymes, yellow, tinged with red, 

 of a beautiful golden colour, 

 with 5 petals and 5 broad, blunt, 

 entire sepals fringed with black 

 glands or black glandular teeth, 

 half as long as the petals, which 

 are glandular and fringed with 

 black glands. The anthers are 

 red, the styles 3. The filaments 

 (36) are united below in three 

 bundles. The capsule is 3- 

 chambered, subconical. 



This plant is often iS in. 

 high. It rtowers in July and 

 August. It is perennial, and 

 a deciduous, herbaceous plant 

 increased by division of the 

 root. 



The flowers are more con- 

 spicuous than in Perforate St. 

 John's Wort, and cross-pollina- 

 tion is more assured than in the 

 latter. Otherwise the two plants 

 have a very similar floral me- 

 chanism adapted to the same 

 end. There is no honey, but 

 much pollen. 

 Seeds are dispersed by the plant's own agency. The capsule is 



septicidal, and the seeds are dispersed by breaking up of the valves, 



aided by the wind. 



Pretty St. John's Wort is a rock-loving plant and addicted to a rock 



soil, which is derived from older rocks. 



Phot... I-I.i[i. rs ,^- i;arri 



Pretty St. John's Wort \Hyf>ericum 

 pulchnim, L. ) 



