ST. yOffN’S WORT. 
107 
ST. JOHN’S WORT.- 
P WARDS the end of June the little golden suns of the 
I greater St. John’s wort are to be seen with their 
I halves of fine red-tipped stamens and glistening petals, 
set in a setting of dull green leaves. They grow on a 
high bank in an unfrequented lane, and it is a yearly custom of 
mine to visit this lane on Midsummer Eve and to gather the 
aromatic leaves and flowers ; partly for the sake of an old friend 
who manufactures a certain healing lotion from the resinous 
plant, but more particularly from a simple love of the beautiful 
flower itself — 
“ Hypericum all bloom, so thick a swarm 
Of flowers, like flies, clothing her slender tods 
That scarce a leaf appears.” 
But Cowper’s lines more accurately describe the true St. 
John’s wort (Hypencum perforatum), so common by our road- 
sides and field-borders ; and, indeed, it is this with which the 
old customs are associated. My particular flowers are of purest 
yellow, except for a short time when the reddish pollen is thick 
tipon their stamens, and year after year they make their appear- 
ance in the deep green lane, which I like to think is only known 
to myself. 
With careful fingers I gathered my little golden suns, and 
as I strolled slowly homewards in the sweet twilight all the old 
tales and associations connected with the St. John’s worts came 
thronging into my mind. But especially my thoughts went 
back to the old Pagan days when blooming at the summer 
solstice, the day dedicated to the sun in heathen mythology, 
they became the symbolical plants of the time. They belonged 
to IBaldur the Beautiful, the Sun-god, the Apollo of the north, 
and in those days were known by his name. But with Chris- 
tianity came new associations. The summer solstice was now- 
dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and the sacred plant w-as no 
longer called Baldur’s flower, or Baldur’s blood, but was named 
after the saint who first brought the light of saving grace to a 
world sunk in darkness. The bright and undefiled flames of the 
great prophet’s watch-fires were seen imaged in the Hypericum’s 
golden bloom, and Columba, the apostle of Iona, who had much 
in common with St. John the Baptist, also loved this flower so 
well that it became, known among the Gaels of Ireland and 
Scotland as “the herb which St. Columba carried,” or as St. 
Columba’s wort {Beach nuadh Colmncille). 
The sacred plant of heathen mythology was now the sacred 
plant of Christendom, and in many countries was held as a safe- 
guard against the approaches of evil. In the Netherlands, it 
Hypericum calycinum . 
