WHAT IS ST JOHN’S WORT?
For a description of St John’s Wort, the plant, also known as Hypericum perforatum, I can do no better than to quote Dr O Phelps Brown, who wrote in 1885: This is a beautiful shrub, and is a great adornment to our meadows. It has a hard and woody root, which abides in the ground many years, shooting anew every year. The stalks run up about two feet high, spreading many branches, having deep-green, ovate, obtuse and opposite leaves, which are full of small holes, which are plainly seen when the leaf is held up to the light. At the tops of the stalks and branches stand yellow flowers of five leaves apiece with many yellow threads in the middle, which, being bruised, yield a reddish juice, like blood, after which come small round heads, wherein is contained small blackish seed, smelling like resin.
This description comes from a book called The Complete Herbalist; or the People Their Own Physicians by the use of Nature’s Remedies; describing the Great Curative Properties Found in the Herbal Kingdom. Over 100 years ago, it seems, people were intrigued by the same possibilities that we are revisiting nowadays – of using Nature’s apothecary as a source of remedies and of healing oneself instead of always seeking out the assistance of a medical practitioner.
The pores in the leaves of St John’s Wort, which look like perforations and give the plant half of its botanical name (perforatum), are thought to contain the plant’s pharmacologically active substances, as do the black spots on the petals. It is these black spots which, when rubbed, yield a reddish liquid that was used for dyeing clothes in earlier times.
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