Androscsmum.] hypericace^. 85 



A Tery glabrous and somewhat shrubby plant. Root woody, of several very 

 long, stout, branched fibres, with a brownish cuticle. Stems several, sufFrutescenl, 

 or rather perhaps they may be called shrubby, seldom above 2i feet high, rounded, 

 with a narrow slightly elevated wing on opposite sides and alternating in position 

 with the leaves, not much branched, the branches opposite or alteiiiate, covered 

 when old like the stem itself with a chestnut- coloured bark, which partly 

 detaches itself in shreds or strips. * Leaves deciduous, opposite, sessile, quite 

 entire, very large, but the lowermost usually smaller than those higher up, 

 ovate or ovato-oblong, obtuse or very slightly pointed, with a minute blunt 

 apiculus, sometimes a little emarginate, rounded or more or less cordate at the 

 base, somewhat glaucous, reticulated beneath with numerous transparent scarcely 

 prominent veius, the miirgins sprinkled with pellucid dots more or less apparent 

 on the disk of the leaf, but always far less conspicuously than in the true species 

 of Hypericum, nor are the black marginal glands so usual in them found at all in 

 this. Flowers in terminal, cymose, nearly simple panicles, that are much shorter 

 than the leaves ; occasionally 1, 2, or 3 on opposite or solitary peduncles in the 

 axils of the leaves immediately below the highest pair, few, small for the size of 

 the plant, about | of an inch in diameter. Bracts small, opposite, ovato-lanceo- 

 late, appressed or erect. Sepals 6, unequal, quite entire, without glands, pellu- 

 cidly veined and punctate, mostly purplish at the base, the 3 exterior ones round- 

 ish ovate, usually very obtuse ; the 2 interior smaller, narrower and somewhat 

 pointed ; all finally enlarged and more or less reflexed in seed. Petals palish 

 yellow, about as long as the sepals, obovate-oblong, concave, quite entire, without 

 dots or glands. Stamens numerous, in 5 sets that are opposite the petals, but 

 sometimes confluent or indistinctly parcelled, about as long as the petals ; anthers 

 without interlobular glands ; pollen whitish. Styles 3, short, cylindrical, erect, 

 slightly spreading at summit ; stigmas glanduloso - pilose, purplish. Germen 

 (ovary) nearly globose, glabrous and shining, neither wrinkled nor furrowed. 

 Capsules berry-like, about ^ an inch long, ovato-rotundate, black, often with a 

 slight bloom, smooth and shining, tipped with the styles or their bases, 

 and marked with 3 or 6 obscure furrows, pulpy when green hut becoming 

 dry and dehiscent when ripe, semitrilocular, the inflexed and doubled margins of 

 the valves projecting a little within the cavity, and carrying each a transverse 

 ovate and fleshy placenta, bearing seed on both sides of its reflexed wings, and 

 unconnected with the walls of the capsule both at top and bottom. Seeds very 

 numerous, minute, brown, oblongo-cylindrical, finely and longitudinally reticu- 

 late, striate and wrinkled. 



The bruised capsules emit a pleasant scent of lemon and turpentine mixed. 



This plant is far more commonly distributed over the country than was formerly 

 imagined. Though never found in profusion, it is met with in almost every part 

 of Britain, even in the N. of Scotland, but is more frequent in the South and 

 especially the West of England. It is of common occurrence from Sussex to 

 Cornwall, increasing in frequency as we advance westward and the winters become 

 milder. On the continent, from its impatience of cold, the species is restricted to 

 the warmer parts of f ranee, Spain, Italy, &c. 



* I have every reason to believe that the flowering stems do not usually survive 

 to flower again, since the plant, though generally accounted shrubby, seems to 

 disappear suddenly in spots where it may have been observed in that state to be 

 pretty frequent the previous season. Such was^the case in Appuldurcombe Park, 

 in a particular part of which I found it in some plenty in 1844, though in the fol- 

 lowing year there was but comparatively little remaining. I have since ascer- 

 tained that the lower part of the stem and even of the branches lives through at 

 least two, and probably many more winters, and that the plant raised liom seed 

 in a garden (St. John's) is perfectly fruticose below and endures for some years, 

 but the smaller branches and extremities of the larger ones seem to be annual, or 

 at least perish in severe winters. 



