Database: St. John's Wort

Hypericum balearicum

SUPSERSTITION. This plant, to which ancient superstition attributed the virtue of defending persons from phantoms and spectres, and driving away devils, whence it was called Fuga Demonum, has been named by modern bigotry St. John's-wort. For the same reason it was also called 'Solterrestres', the Terrestrial Sun, because the spirits of darkness were believed to vanish at the approach of that luminary.

- The Language of Flowers