Friday Fabulous Flower - St. John's Wort

Mid-summer is sort of a slow time for our gardens, so we do prize those plants that flower in July and August.  Two species of bushy St. John's Wort grow in our gardens, both sort of evergreen, flowering at exactly the same time.  The very bright yellow flowers are a great favorite of all the local bees, both in terms of number of visitors and diversity of bee species. And it's easy to see why.  How many anthers are there?  Botanists will count to 10, but after that it's just "many".  Just one pistil (sort of right center) but lots of stamens, a powder puff of pollen.  This is from the larger flowered species, Hypericum prolificum, it is not quite hardy at this latitude and portions tend to die over winter, but then new plants pop up now and again, so never had to replace it.  H. kamianum seems to be hardier; it is a smaller shrub with smaller flowers and can fit in almost anywhere.  

Friday Fabulous Flower - St. John's Wort

Nothing makes the pollen-gathering bees happier than the flowering of our shrubby st. john's wort (Hypericum frondosum). You can see why one of the popular varieties is called 'sunburst'. Although the flower is only about 4 cm in diameter, the shrub produces masses of flowers at once for quite a buzzing display. As easily observed the stamens are numerous which is typical for this family, Clusiaceae, formerly Guttiferae. Given the number of stamens and the number of bees (at least 5 different ones) collecting pollen, how could the single pistil not get pollinated? If you google st. john's wort you'll get pages and pages advertising and discussing it as an herbal remedy for depression, but according to Quack Watch the best clincal trials have not found its effect to be significantly different from a placebo control. However this does not affect its sale as an herbal supplement or from its purveyors making false claims about its value. Better to enjoy the flowers and bees.