I. The Stinking May Weed (A. cotula). Ray-florets usually without pistils. The plant is smooth or hairy, not downy, but the leaves are quite smooth, and covered with minute glands, which secrete a fœtid-smelling and acrid juice, causing swelling of the hands in persons clearing fields of this weed. The flower-stalks are more slender than in arvensis, and the involucral bracts are narrower at their tips. Fields, wastes and roadsides; very common in South of England, rare in the North. Flowers June to September.
II. The Chamomile (A. nobilis.) Perennial. Branches spreading from the root, leafy and furrowed, hollow. Leaves woolly, aromatic. Flower-stalk long and slender; involucre downy and chaffy. The ray-florets are sometimes wanting. In great favour as a remedy for indigestion. Gravelly pastures and dry wastes in England and Ireland. Rare. It is not a native of Scotland. Flowers July to September.
St. John's Wart (Hypericum perforatum).
There are no less than eleven native species of St. John's Wort, all characterized by a neat habit, clean-cut leaves without stalks, yellow flowers in cymose clusters, and a multitude of stamens, which are more or less joined in several bundles.
The species represented on our plate is one of the commonest, and occurs in copses and hedgebanks throughout the kingdom, as far north as Sutherland, flowering from July to September. It is very erect in habit, the stems two-edged, pale brown and smooth, two or three feet high. If the leaves are held up to the light it will be found that the veins (but not the reticulations) are pellucid, and that the leaf is thickly dotted with pellucid glands. The flowers are 1 to 1¼ inch in diameter. The calyx, corolla, and sometimes leaves are more or less marked with black dots and lines. The sepals and petals are each five in number; the ovary large, pear-shaped, surmounted by three long styles, which are longer than the ovary. The stamens joined in three bundles by their bases only. Sepals glandular.
Among the other British species are:—
I. Square-stalked St. John's Wort (H. tetrapterum). Stem with four narrow wings, 1 to 2 feet, leaves broader than in perforatatum, but the glands, veins and reticulations are pellucid. Styles shorter than the ovary. Flowers dense, 1⁄2 to 3⁄4 inch, across. Moist places, July and August.
