Hypericum prolificum L.

Shrub (0.2-)0.75-1 .5(-2) m tall, erect (or diffusely branched) with branches erect to ascending, forming rounded or irregular bush. Stems green, 4-lined and ancipitous when young, soon 4-lined and rounded, becoming reddish brown and terete in 2nd or 3rd season; cortex exfoliating in strips or flakes; bark pale grey, smooth, thin. Leaves sessile or rarely with pseudopetiole to 3(4-6) mm long, sometimes clustered; lamina 30-70 x 6-15 mm, narrowly oblong to narrowly elliptic-oblanceolate, plane? or with margin recurved, paler or somewhat glaucous beneath, deciduous at basal articulation, apex rounded-apiculate or rarely retuse to acute, base attenuate to narrowly cuneate (and then pseudopetiolate); venation usually clearly visible beneath: c. 10-16 pairs main laterals with subsidiaries and densely reticulate tertiaries, only midrib prominent; laminar glands dense. Inflorescence ( 1 )3-7(-9)-flowered, rarely with paired accessory flowers, with paired single flowers or triads or 1-3(-7)-flowered branches from 2 nodes below, the whole broadly to narrowly cylindric; pedicels 1-2 mm long; bracts foliar or reduced, oblong-elliptic. Flowers 15-30 mm in diam.; buds broadly ovoid. Sepals 5, 4-8 x 1.5-4 mm, enlarging in fruit, imbricate, unequal to subequal, broadly or narrowly elliptic to obovate-spathulate or oblanceolate, obtuse or apiculate-obtuse to acute, plane or with margin recurved, basal veins 3-7, not or obscurely branching. Petals 5, golden yellow, becoming incurved-deflexed, 7-15 x 3-6 mm, 1.75-2 x sepals, obovate to oblanceolate-spathulate, with apiculus lateral, obtuse or apiculate-obtuse to acute. Stamens c. 150- 500, longest 10-11 mm, 0.7-0.85 x petals. Ovary 3(4-5)-merous, (3-)4 5.5 x 1.2-3 mm, narrowly ovoid to narrowly ellipsoid, acute, placentation incompletely axile; styles 3(4-5), 4-6 mm long, 1-1.3 x ovary, remaining erect, separating slightly only as fruit matures. Capsule (6-)7-l 3 x 4-7 mm, narrowly ovoid-conic to ovoid or rarely ellipsoid, acute to subacute, trigonous to rounded, exceeding sepals, thickly to thinly coriaceous. Seeds blackish brown, 1.5-2 mm long, ecarinate; testa linear-reticulate to subscalariform.