Hypericum hircinum (Nomenclature)
Shrub (0-2-)0-5-l-8(-3) m tall, bushy with numerous stems from branching but not rooting base, with branches erect to spreading or pendulous. Stems 4-lined and ancipitous when young, eventually 2-lined or terete; internodes 2-9 mm long, shorter than to exceeding leaves; bark grey-brown, fissured. Leaves sessile to subsessile, sometimes amplexicaul, when crushed usually smelling of goats (caproicacid); lamina 20-65(-75) x (8-)12-27(-35) mm, broadly ovate to triangular-lanceolate, acute to rounded, margin plane or crisped-undulate, base cordate or rounded to cuneate or shortly angustate, somewhat paler beneath, very rarely glaucous, chartaceous to papyraceous; venation: 2-4(-5) pairs of ascending main lateral veins, with tertiary reticulum ± prominent on both sides; laminar glands small; intramarginal glands dense. Inflorescence (l-)3-c. 20-flowered, from 1-2 nodes without condensed internode, broadly pyramidal, often with 3-flowered branches from node below and flowering branches from up to 4 nodes below that, the whole then narrowly pyramidal to subcylindric; pedicels 4-10 mm long; bracts rarely foliar, usually reduced, lanceolate to subulate. Flowers (20-)25-40 mm in diam.; buds ± globose, rounded. Sepals (2-)4-8 x 1-3 mm, imbricate or open, somewhat unequal, decurving and sometimes slightly enlarging after anthesis, deciduous before fruit ripens, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, acute to shortly acuminate, 5-7-veined from base with veins ± branched and reticulate; laminar glands linear to striiform; inframarginal glands ± dense. Petals golden yellow, not tinged red, spreading, 11-21 x 4-9 mm, 3-4 x sepals, oblanceolate or oblong-oblanceolate to narrowly obovate, with apiculus subterminal and obsolete or absent. Stamen fascicles each with c. 20 stamens, longest 12-22 mm long, 1-1.2 x petals. Ovary 3-5 x 2-3.5 mm, ellipsoid, acute; styles 10-24 mm, 3-5 x ovary, erect, narrowly divergent in the upper 1/3-1/4; stigmas narrowly capitate. Capsule 5-14 x 4-7 mm, ellipsoid or ovoid-ellipsoid to subcylindric, coriaceous, maturing from green to mid-brown, dull, incompletely dehiscent. Seeds orange- to reddish-brown, c. 1-2—1-5 mm long, completely unilaterally winged, with terminal winged appendages.
2n = 40.
In damp or shaded places, often beside streams, (30-)300-1200 m (to 2100 m in Saudi Arabia).
France (possibly native in SW.; naturalised in W., north to Calvados and Manche, and S.-central), Spain (N. from Cataluna to Santander; naturalised in extreme S. and in Gibraltar), Balearic Islands (Mallorca), Italy (Liguria, Lazio, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Elba, Ischia, Lipari Islands), Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Morocco, Greece (Peloponnesus), Crete. Andhros, Samos, Rhodes, Turkey (S.), Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel (N.), Saudi Arabia (Asir). Naturalised also in Portugal, British Isles (all countries), and Yugoslavia (Pula).
The natural distribution of H. hircinum on the western European mainland is difficult to establish because of the frequency with which it has escaped from cultivation. The map published by Sauvage (1958) includes northern Portugal, the Landes, Pyrenees, and Cataluña, and a continuous strip of land from there down the western side of Italy to Basilicata, but doubtfully excludes Sicily and the extreme south of Calabria. In Flora Europaea (Robson, 1968), on the other hand, the regional advisers took the view that the species is not native anywhere in Portugal, Spain or France, but is so in Sicily. From a study of variation, specimen labels and floras, it would appear that H. hircinum grows in natural habitats away from habitation in at least some localities in Spain, France, and Sicily, and that the endemic subspecies of the Balearic Islands (subsp. cambessedesii) resembles most closely specimens from Cataluña. It seems likely, therefore, that this species is a native component of the floras of France, Spain and Sicily. On the Italian mainland, there seems to be a gap in its distribution between (i) Liguria and (ii) Lazio to southern Calabria. H. hircinum is very variable; but the variation, though clearly geographical, is not sufficiently discontinuous to allow recognition of more than one species. It is possible, however, to distinguish no less than five subspecies (Fig. 8). The most primitive form (of subsp. majus), which is the most similar one to H. foliosum, occurs in southern Italy, Sicily, and (rarely) Crete, and rather similar plants are found in Rhodes, S. Turkey, the Levant and Asir. From the two Mediterranean foci trends may be discerned leading to pendulous branches (Morocco - subsp. metroi), to narrower, acute leaves and smaller parts (Liguria, Pyrenees leaves with etc., ending in the Balearic Is. - subsp. cambessedesii), to smaller, broader, rounded plane margin and smaller fruits (Sardinia, Corsica - subsp. hircinum), and to smaller, broader, apiculate to rounded leaves with crisped-undulate margin and smaller fruits (Cyprus, Samos, Andros, Greece, Crete - subsp. albimontanum). The description of H. hircinum L. in Species plantarum is clearly based primarily on that in Hortus Cliffortianus , the phrase name being taken directly from this work. It does not indicate any particular subspecies. There is one specimen of H. hircinum in Herb. Cliff. (BM) and a duplicate of it in the Linnaean Herbarium (LINN). One of these is clearly the indicated lectotype, and I have selected the one in Herb. Linn. (943. 16). Both these specimens, however, are clearly of the subspecies from Corsica and Sardinia (subsp. obtusifolium (Choisy) Sauvage), which must therefore become subsp. hircinum. Linnaeus appears to have based his concept in 1753 of H. hircinum largely on this subspecies; whereas his Hort. Cliff., synonymy (1738) included 'Hypericum frutescens maj. & minus. Dill. elth. 182. t. 151, f. 181, 182', in Species plantarum he omitted 'majus' and 'f. 181'. The other citations in Species plantarum (to 'Bauh. pin.' and 'Clus. hist.'), as well as the distribution {Habitat in Sicilia, Calabria, Creta'), refer in part to other subspecies, but this fact cannot be taken as an indication that another element should be chosen as lectotype. The subspecies called subsp. hircinum by Sauvage therefore requires another name, and it is appropriate to use the Dillenian epithet majus from Hortus elthamensis.