Hypericum phellos Gleason

Shrub or small tree 0-3-4 m tall, erect, with branches strict, almost always lateral. Stems yellow-brown, 4-lined and ± ancipitous when young, becoming terete, often with transverse epidermal or corky wrinkles or emergences immediately below the node or ± throughout the 30internode, cortex exfoliating in strips; internodes 1.5-3 mm long. Leaves sessile, spreading from the base or imbricate and tetrastichous, deciduous near the base after fading or persistent; lamina 4-20 x (l-)2-6 mm, narrowly to broadly elliptic or oblong to obovate or oblanceolate, plane or recurved, not concave, not or scarcely carinate, concolorous, not glaucous, thickly to thinly coriaceous; apex shortly acuminate to rounded, base cuneate to angustate, not sheathing, free or pairs united to form a narrow interfoliar ridge; basal veins 3-7, diverging, all or only the midrib branching, tertiary reticulation obscure or not visible; laminar glands rather dense, impressed above, ± prominent beneath. Inflorescence l(2-5)-flowered, terminal and on short lateral shoots, with extension shoots usually from 2-3 nodes below; peduncle and pedicels 1-9 mm long; upper leaves foliose or bracteose. Flowers 15-30 mm in diam., stellate. Sepals 4-9 x 1-5-3 mm, ± narrowly oblong to lanceolate or elliptic or rarely oblanceolate, acute or acuminate to obtuse or rarely rounded; veins 5-7, branched distally, midrib not or scarcely prominent; glands mostly linear or up to half punctiform. Petals bright yellow to orange-yellow, sometimes margined red, 8-15 x 4-8 mm, c. 2 x sepals, oblanceolate to narrowly obovate; apiculus acute; glands all linear or distally interrupted. Stamens c. 40-200, longest 5-8 mm long, c. 0-5-0-7 x petals. Ovary 2-3-5 x 1.5-2 mm, ovoid; styles 3, (5-)6-9 mm long, 2-3 x ovary, spreading, incurved distally; stigmas small or subcapitate. Capsule 4.5-5 x 3.5-5 mm, subglobose to globose, shorter than sepals. Seeds c. 1 mm long, ecarinate; testa finely scalariform.