46 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



and thus justifies the common English name of the plant ; it 

 is often reddish in colour, too, though this is a matter that 

 may or may not be according to the place of growth. We 

 frequently find that plants which grow in somewhat open 

 situations, where the struggle for life is somewhat harder, 

 have tinted stems, while similar plants growing amidst the 

 surrounding vegetation and in the shelter of a wood or 

 hedgerow remain green; our present plant is one of the 

 numerous cases in point. The stem is very stiff and rigid 

 in character, and is either quite simple or very slightly 

 branching. This branching, when it takes place at all, is 

 near the summit. The leaves are a full rich green in 

 colour when the light shines through them, but, like the 

 stems, they are so covered with short hairs that their upper 

 surfaces receive a greyish tinge in consequence. They are 

 rather larger than in some of the species of Hypericum, 

 spring in pairs from the stem, have very short foot-stalks, 

 and are marked with multitudinous, minute, transparent or 

 pellucid dots, a feature that they share in common with 

 several of the other St. John's Worts, and which has earned 

 for them the vulgar name of " thousand holes/' 



In the leaf axils we ordinarily find two or four small 

 leaves : these may be clearly seen in our illustration. At 

 times these develop into branches, and at others are wholly 

 wanting, but the normal state of things is as we have figured 

 it. The calyx is composed of five narrow segments, its edges 

 being fringed with black glandular dots. Six of the genus 

 exhibit this glandular development : the trailing St. John's 

 Wort, or Hypericum humifusum; the flax-leaved St. John's 

 Wort, or H. Linariifolium; the slender St. John's Wort, or 

 H. pulchrum; the mountain St. John's Wort, or H. monta- 

 mim ; the marsh St. John's Wort, or H. Elodes ; and the 



