198 THE OPEN BOOK OF NATURE 
become tinged with red, when they are exceedingly 
attractive. This plant, which is by no means 
common, belongs to the St. John’s Wort family, 
of which we have about a dozen species; it is a 
relation of the large-flowered St. John’s Wort, which 
is often cultivated as a garden shrub and goes by 
the names “Rose of Sharon” and “ Aaron’s 
- Beard.” Other members of the family which are 
commonly seen in our district are the Square- 
stalked St. John’s Wort (H. quadrangulum), the 
Perforated St. John’s Wort (H. perforatum,) also the 
Small Upright (H. pulchrum) and the Trailing 
(H. humifusum). 
We must not pass the humble little Moschatel 
(Adoxa Moschatellina), which, small as it is, is a 
close relation of the Ivy, belonging to the same 
Natural Order—Araliacee. Its delicate leaves are 
scented with musk; there are long stalked leaves 
rising from the root, and the flower-stalk, which 
also is radical, bears a pair of opposite ternate 
leaves near the top. The flower-stalk terminates 
in a cube-shaped head of five yellowish-green 
flowers. Four of the flowers are arranged like the 
faces of a four-faced clock—hence some people have 
dubbed the plant the ‘‘Wee Town Clock ’”—and 
the fifth flower is like another clock face on the 
top of the cube. The corolla of the top flower 
is cleft into four segments, and the lateral corollas 
are five-cleft. The stamens are united in pairs. 
When the flowers have been fertilized and the fruit 
begins to swell, the erstwhile erect heads begin to 
hang, and as the weight of the fruit increases, the 
stalks bearing it gradually bend over until the 
