HYPERICUM. 
brilliant suns of spraying gold. The plant is not uncommon in the 
warm sub-alpine stony places of Greece, and away into Asia Minor 
and Russia. It should have a warm and sheltered corner in rather 
specially light poor soil, and care should be taken, if possible, to get the 
narrower-leaved form which gives even more grace than the others 
to the great glowing blossoms that sometimes look almost too ex- 
cessive and bunchy for the plant’s fine habit, and in summers of 
Noachian weather cake into a wad of soaked and brown decay. 
H. orientale has the same height or less, with rather broader foliage 
that sometimes embraces the stem. By so much it is a trifle less 
attractive, though the flowers are fine and large, borne on herbaceous 
stalks that are usually quite simple and unbranched. ‘There are 
several varieties, for H. orientale has a wide range in the Levant. 
H. origanifolium (with a variety H. 0. pulverulentum), from the 
rocky places of Asia Minor, is a pretty thing, not more than 6 inches 
high, all clothed in short grey down, and set with blunt little oval 
leaves, and carrying blossoms of good size and brilliancy. Quite close 
to this is H. ghewense, from Northern Anatolia, which however has 
broader leaves, almost heart-shaped at the base, and is clad altogether 
in much longer softer fur. 
H. Pestalozzae is a graceful weakly grower with very fine stems of 
some half a foot or more, and showers of yellow blooms that are 
smaller than in H. tomentosum, while the leafage is veiled in the same 
soft grey velvet. (Pamphylia.) 
H. polyphylum stands in the foreground. It has much the same 
habits as H. olympicum, but is smaller in all its parts, and is a much 
bushier grower, about 6 inches or a foot high, in a mass of leafy shoots, 
bluish-grey, and set more densely with smaller and more upstanding 
pairs of little leaves, each of the stems bearing a head of some half a 
dozen wide golden stars (only a trifle smaller than in H. olympicum, 
and with a much smalier calyx) in such abundance as to make the 
whole bushling a dense constellation of light, with the fine fluff of the 
stamens adding that extra touch of fantastic elegance in which all 
the St. John’s-worts are thus pre-eminent. H. polyphyllum comes 
from the warm limestone rocks by Mersina in Asia Minor, and in 
cultivation has a temper of perfect adaptability to any decently light 
and sunny situation: of which there is nothing more brilliantly 
worthy. 
H. repens is so called because it has no tendency to creep (or 
““repe ’’), but, on the contrary, makes low masses of narrow foliage, 
growing in a dense and flat mass about 6 or 8 inches high—the whole 
effect closely resembling a very tight-packed stout H.Coris, or a very 
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