YELLOW AND ORANGE WILD FLOWERS 
plant. They believed that the dew which accumulated 
upon this plant during the night preceding St. John’s 
Day, the twenty-fourth of July, possessed peculiar 
qualities that would preserve failing eyesight. Parts 
of the plant furnished them with a family cure-all for 
various bodily ailments, but it was most highly esteemed 
as a remedy for wounds and bruises, a purpose for 
which it is still being used. A preparation formerly 
called “balm of the warrior’s wound” is made by 
reducing the tops to a pulp in olive oil. When crushed 
the leaves have an agreeable odour, somewhat like 
balsam. The juice is acrid, and has a bitter taste. 
In rural England and Germany windows and doors 
were decorated with St. John’s-wort on the eve of 
St. John’s Day, with the supposition that it would pre- 
vent the entrance of evil spirits. German women 
wore it in an amulet about their necks, and in Scotland 
it was carried about in the pockets as a guard against 
witchcraft. In Europe there is a popular notion that 
its presence averts destruction by lightning. The 
smooth, slender and much branched, leafy stalk rises 
from one to two feet in height, and has many barren 
shoots at its base. The thin-textured, oblong or linear 
leaves have a rounding point, and are arranged in 
opposite pairs. The edges are entire, and the under 
surface is often spotted with tiny black specks. Between 
the conspicuous ribbings, the texture is thickly dotted 
with very fine specks that, when held to the light, 
show transparently, exactly as if they had been pricked 
with a needle point. The light green calyx has four 
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