Medicinal herbs of St. John's Wort (Hypericum)

Hypericum (St. John's Wort) is a genus of about 450 species of trees, shrubs and herbs that occurs in all temperate part of the world but has only in species in southern South America and two species in Australia and New Zealand.

It is a perennial herbaceous plant with mature stems and branches that are smooth without hairs.

St. John’s Wort was first mentioned in Roman times by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century AD. Around the same times, Diascorides, a Roman army doctor born in Greece recommended the imbibition of St. John’s Wort with special liquids ‘to expel many choleric excrements’.

Hypericum belongs to the family Clusiaceae and shares with all or most of the other genera of that family opposite simple entire exstipulate leaves, the presence of glandular secretions, free petals, fascicles of stamens and seeds lacking endosperm.

Hypericum perforatum (devil’s scourage, goat weed, rosin rose, St. John’s Wort, Tipton weed, witch’s herb) contains the naphthodianthrones hypericin, and pseudohypericin, flavonoids, such as hyperoside, isoquercitin and rutin, and phloroglucinols, such as adhyperforin and hyperforin. It is effective in mild to moderate depression.
Medicinal herbs of St. John's Wort (Hypericum)