Americanized Saint-John's-Wort Gardens: Light-Activated Herbal Toxin

Summary: Saint-John's-wort and Saint-Peter's-wort treat Americanized Saint-John's-wort gardens to ground cover and herbal remedies away from farm animals.

Saint John's wort's flowers; Gallatin County, southwestern Montana; Sunday, Aug. 22, 2010, 16:03:54: Matt Lavin, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr

Americanized Saint-John's-wort gardens alienate farmers, gardeners, naturalists and ranchers through land invasions by multiple reproduction means and through livestock poisoning by hypericin, light-activated herbal toxin accelerating skin irritation, sunburn and weight loss.

North America's federal, provincial, state and territorial governments typically ban native and non-native plants for bringing down crop production, ecosystem balance, human health and species diversity. They thus far consider Saint-Peter's-wort, nicknamed square-stalked Saint-John's-wort, less contentious than its fellow member in the Hypericaceae family of predominantly temperate region-dwelling herbs, shrubs and trees. Medicinal and ornamental reputations of other members in the family's nine genera and 560 species do not deter Saint-John's-wort's dismissal as too weedy for North America.

Legislation in Alberta, Manitoba, and Quebec in Canada and in California, Colorado, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington and Wyoming in the United States excludes Saint-John's-wort.

Seedlings flaunt lance-shaped to oval, 0.06- to 0.12-inch- (1.5- to 3-millimeter-) long, 0.04- to 0.08-inch- (1- to 2-millimeter-) wide cotyledons with three veins on the upper-sides.

The seedling stage grows embryonic leaves on purple stems until giving way to the first leaf stage of elliptical to oval, opposite-arranged foliage with black-dotted undersides. The mature perennial has elliptical to oblong, opposite-arranged, stalkless, 0.39- to 1.18-inch- (1- to 3-centimeter-) long foliage with three- to five-veined, translucent-dotted surfaces with black-dotted margins. Its foliage is on horizontal, 0.79- to 3.94-inch- (2- to 10-centimeter-) long, reddish, short branches that incline from branched, erect, rust-colored stems and include black glands.

Americanized Saint-John's-wort gardens juxtapose above-ground, woody-based shoots, below-ground elongated, 4.92-foot- (1.5-meter-) deep taproots and 1.64-foot- (0.5-meter-) long underground stems, called rhizomes, resproutable to 1.97-inch- (5-centimeter) depths.

Dissolved hormones and nutrients from roots and photosynthetic products from leaves keep Saint-John's-wort blooming from June to September with flat-topped, 25- to 100-flowered inflorescences called cymes.

The oldest of the orange to yellow, perfect, regular, showy flowers, each 0.59 to 0.98 inches (1.5 to 2.5 centimeters) across, leans from its cyme's tips. Every flower manages one pistil with three 0.12- to 0.39-inch- (3- to 10-millimeter-) long styles, three stamen-filled yellow bundles and five each of petals and sepals. The European, North African, west Asian native, named Hypericum perforatum (above-icon, perforated [flowers]), nestles stamens opposite black dot-edged, 0.32- to 0.47-inch- (8- to 12-millimeter-) long petals.

Americanized Saint-John's-wort gardens offer linear to lance-shaped, 0.16- to 0.19-inch- (4- to 5-millimeter-) long sepals during their flowering stages and ovate, red-brown capsules during fruiting stages.

Saint-John's-wort, nicknamed amber, eola weed, goatweed, herb john, klamath weed, rosin rose and tipton weed, produces 61 to 502 seeds per capsule and 34,000 seeds yearly.

Shiny black to light brown, 0.04- to 0.05-inch- (1- to 1.2-millimeter-) long seeds explosively quit dry, sticky-haired, three-celled, 0.19- to 0.39-inch- (5- to 10-millimeter-) long capsules. Dull, oblong, roughened seeds retain respective five-, 10-plus- and 16-year viabilities in soil, fresh water and dry storage and, upon germination, realize maximum seven-year life cycles. They sprout generally on soil surfaces, rarely at 0.39-inch- (1-centimeter-) depths and sometimes after fires of 212 to 284 degrees Fahrenheit (100 to 140 degrees Celsius).

Americanized Saint-John's-wort gardens with Saint-John's-wort, described by Swedish botanist Carl Linneaus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1787), and Saint-Peter's-wort traditionalize herbal remedy-related ornamentation away from hypericin-sensitive foragers.

field of Saint John's wort (Hypericum perforatum), beginning of Southern Hemisphere summer; Sunday, Dec. 16, 2007, 13:06; Belair National Park, South Australia, south central Australia: Peripitus, CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Saint John's wort's flowers; Gallatin County, southwestern Montana; Sunday, Aug. 22, 2010, 16:03:54: Matt Lavin, CC BY SA 2.0 Generic, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/plant_diversity/5258424959/

field of Saint John's wort (Hypericum perforatum), beginning of Southern Hemisphere summer; Sunday, Dec. 16, 2007, 13:06; Belair National Park, South Australia, south central Australia: Peripitus, CC BY 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hypericum_perforatum_field_belair_park.jpg

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

"Hypericum perforatum L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/7800012

Linneaus, Carl. 1753. "14. Hypericum perforatum." Species Plantarum, vol. II: 785. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358806

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.