Hypericum sprucei (Nomenclature)
Shrub 0.2-2 m tall, erect to ascending, with branches strict, lateral or more rarely pseudo-dichotomous. Stems orange-brown, 4-lined and ancipitous when young, eventually terete, cortex exfoliating irregularly; internodes 1.5-7 mm long. Leaves sessile, densely to loosely imbricate, erect, spreading and twisting, scarcely tetrastichous, deciduous above base without fading; lamina 6-12 x 0.8-1.7 mm, very narrowly oblanceolate to linear, incurved-cucullate, midrib impressed beneath, margin very narrowly hyaline, concolorous, not glaucous, coriaceous; apex acute, base parallel, not sheathing, pairs united to form narrow interfoliar ridge; basal vein 1, unbranched; laminar glands rather dense, few or sometimes none visible beneath. Inflorescence 1-flowered, rarely with pseudo-dichotomous branches from node below; pedicel 1.5-3 mm long, not incrassate upwards; upper leaves not transitional. Flowers 20-30 mm in diam., stellate. Sepals 7-11 x 1.5-2.5 mm, lanceolate, acute to acuminate, incurved above, margin hyaline, veins 5, midrib not prominent; glands linear, distally punctiform. Petals bright to deep yellow, 10-15 x 5-7 mm, c. 1.4 x sepals, oblong-oblanceolate; apiculus sharply acute to apiculate; glands striiform to punctiform, sparse. Stamens 60-75, longest 5-9 mm long, 0.5-0.6 x petals. Ovary 2-3.5 x 1.5-2 mm, ellipsoid-subglobose; styles 3(4), (2.5)3-4.5 mm long, (1.3)1.5 -2 x ovary, outcurving, slender; stigmas narrowly or not capitate. Capsule c. 5 x 3 mm, broadly ellipsoid to subglobose, shorter than sepals. Seeds c. 0-8 mm long (immature?), ecarinate; testa finely scalariform.
Open, dry or damp paramo; 2725-4000 m.
Ecuador (Carchi to Loja, apparently absent from Cotopaxi and Bolivar), Peru (Piura).
H. sprucei provides a morphological and geographical link between H. valleanum (Colombia) and three species in southern Ecuador and Peru (Spp. 48-50). From H. valleanum it differs in the slender styles and the shorter, narrower leaves. For differences between it and the southern species, see their accounts below.
H. sprucei varies clinally from north to south, the plants from Carchi being most similar to H. valleanum. Towards the southern end of its range (Azuay to Piura), the leaves become slenderer and more flexuous, and the habit low and multi-stemmed. In Chimborazo the leaves and flowers of some plants are relatively small, thus indicating a trend towards 48.H. aciculare.