Hypericum galioides (Nomenclature)
Shrub 0.5-1.5 m tall, erect, with branches strict to ascending, forming rounded clumps. Stems stramineous to reddish, 6-lined and ancipitous when young, soon 4-lined and rounded, then terete; cortex exfoliating in small roughish flakes to reveal fine lattice of laticifers; bark smooth, thin. Leaves sessile or apparently pseudopetiolate, with those in axillary immature clusters sometimes almost as large; lamina 15-32(-37) x 1-7 mm, very narrowly oblong-elliptic or oblanceolate to linear, with margin recurved to revolute, paler but not glaucous beneath with lamina visible on both sides of midrib, chartaceous, deciduous at basal articulation, apex rounded or apiculate-obtuse to acute, base attenuate; venation (sometimes obscure): numerous main laterals and subsidiaries, with tertiary reticulation often visible, only midrib prominent; laminar glands dense; inframarginal glands dense. Inflorescence 3-c. 15-flowered, without accessory flowers, with (1)3-5-flowered dichasia from 3-4 nodes below and often flowering branches from lower nodes, the whole narrowly cylindric; pedicels 0.5-1 mm long; bracts somewhat reduced, foliar. Flowers 9-14 mm in diam.; buds narrowly ovoid. Sepals 5, 3.5-6.5 x 0.5-1.5 mm, subequal to equal, not enlarging or spreading in fruit, oblanceolate-spathulate to linear, acute to apiculate-obtuse, 1-veined, deciduous. Petals 5, bright yellow, becoming somewhat deflexed, 5-9 x 2-5.5 mm, obovate-oblanceolate with apiculus lateral, acute. Stamens c. 60-120, longest 3.5-7 mm, c. 0.65 x petals. Ovary 3-merous, 2-3 x 0.5-1 mm, very narrowly pyramidal-ovoid, acute; placentation parietal; styles 3, 4-5 mm long, 1.2-1.35 x ovary, remaining erect, separating only as fruit matures. Capsule 4.5-6 x 2.5-3.5 mm, narrowly ovoid-conic, shorter than sepals, thinly coriaceous. Seeds dark brown, 0.7-0.8 mm long, carinate?; testa finely reticulate.
2n = 1 8 (n = 9) (Adams in Robson & Adams, 1968).
Wet or moist, open habitats (stream banks, swamps, river bottoms, flood plains, lake margins, roadside ditches, low pine forest); coastal plain, below 200 m.
South-eastern U.S.A. from North Carolina to northern Florida and west to eastern Texas, excluding most of the Mississippi delta.
The leaves of H. galioides vary in width from that of typical H. densiflorum ('var. ambiguum') to as narrow as those of H. nitidum; but the lamina (except for the midrib) is always thin and visible beneath, at least in the living plant. The long narrow inflorescence distinguishes it from H. densiflorum but not from H. nitidum, which is a larger plant, having leaves usually with no lamina visible beneath. As Adams (1962) has pointed out, the names H. galioides Lam. and H. axillare Lam. were published in the same work. The early nineteenth century botanists were unsure of the application of H. axillare, so H. galioides became the established name.
Svenson (1940: 13) stated that the Hypericum galioides Lam. type collection is apparently identical with several from near Wilmington, N. Carolina, although 'merid.' implies S. Carolina.
Chapman cites 'H. ambiguum Ell.? Torrey & Gray' as the Hypericum galioides var. ambiguum (Elliott) Chapm. type, but Torrey & Gray (1838) do not mention var. ambiguum, Chapman's name must therefore have Elliott's type.