156 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



This is perliaps the most elegant species of the genus. It creeps with its pretty 

 bright blossoms over dry and desolate districts, on arid stone walls, on boggy pastures, 

 or on broken or gravelly ground, as if all places were alike to it, so that it may but 

 weave its slender stems and golden stars into the fair tapestry that clothes the earth. 



SPECIES X— HYPERICUM LIN ARIIFOLIU M. ViU. 



Plate CCLXXII. 

 Jieich. Ic. Fl. Germ, et Ilelv. Vol. VI. Ihjp. Tab. CCCI. Fig. 51906. 



Rootstock woody. Stems geaerally numerous, rather slender, 

 erect from a decumbent base, nearly simple, with 2 scarcely per- 

 ceptible elevated lines. Leaves oblong- strap shaped (or the lower 

 ones oblong), sessile, with a few pellucid dots, and only the principal 

 veins or nerves pellucid. Flowers few, in terminal forked cymes 

 or short fiat-topped panicles. Sepals slightly unequal, lanceolate or 

 strap-shaped, ciliated at the edge with thick gland-tipped hairs with 

 black glands on the disk. Petals more than twice as long as the 

 sepals, with black dots along the margins. Styles nearly as long as 

 the capsule. Capsule quite twice as long as the sepals, with each 

 valve having numerous vittae on the back. 



On dry rocky banks. Rare. Cape Carwall, and on the banks of 

 the Teign, Tamar, and Tavey, Devon ; also in the Channel Islands. 



England. Perennial. Early Summer. 



Stems wiry, 3 to 15 inches high, nearly cylindrical, having 

 the raised lines indistinct, and indeed only visible towards the 

 top. Leaves crowded (except at the top of the stem), ^ to Ij inch 

 long, obtuse at the apex, those on the barren shoots and base of 

 the stem broadest. Flowers ^ to f inch across, bright yellow. 

 Stamens a little shorter than the petals. Plant deep green, often 

 tinged with red towards the base. 



In ordinary states this plant cannot be confounded with any of 

 the other British species ; but in Jersey, at Noirmont Point, I 

 found growing with it a plant strangely intermediate between this 

 species and II. humifusum, some specimens approaching to the one 

 and some to the other. Most of these forms are no doubt the 

 Hypericum dccumbens of Petermann, which is 11. humifusum with 

 the margins of the sepals ciliated ; but some of the examples appear 

 to be truly II. linariifolium, but with decumbent stems, and the 

 leaves broader than usual thovigh still crowded and diminisliing in 

 size towards the top of the stem more than is the case with those 

 of II. humifusum. 



Linaria-leaccd St. John's Wort. 



French, Millfjieiiui^ a Feui'lca Liucalres. 



