Hypericum aegypticum L.

Shrub or shrublet 0.05-2 m, tall, much branched, bushy or spreading, with branches erect to divergent or rarely decumbent to ascending; wholly glabrous, without dark glands. Stems 2 (rarely 4)- lined and ancipitous at first, soon terete, glaucous, with internodes shorter than leaves. Leaves free, sessile to shortly (c. 0.5 mm) petiolate, persistent for c. 2 seasons; lamina (3-)3.5-18 x (l-)1.5-5 mm, narrowly to broadly elliptic or narrowly oblong, concolorous, densely glaucous, coriaceous, apex acute to obtuse, margin plane to incurved-cucullate, base cuneate; venation: 1 pair of laterals or 1-nerved, with midrib sometimes pinnately branched and prominent beneath; laminar glands dense; marginal glands dense. Inflorescence 1 -flowered, terminal and from up to c. 4 axils below, with short flowering branches (usually after a 'sterile' region) from up to c. 11 nodes, or 'sterile' region absent and flowers or flowering branches from up to c: 22 nodes, the whole spiciform, with elongate branches originating below flowering region; bracts absent or foliar, clasping calyx, persistent, with glands punctiform and striiform; pedicels very short or absent. Flowers c. 5-10 mm in diam.; buds narrowly ovoid-ellipsoid, subacute. Sepals green, (2.5)-3.5-5.5 x 1-2 mm, imbricate, subequal, oblong to elliptic or lanceolate- elliptic, rounded to apiculate or obtuse, cucullate, stiffly erect; veins c. 9, only midrib prominent, unbranched; laminar glands linear; submarginal glands rather dense. Petals bright to rather pale yellow, persistent in fruit, 6.5-12(-14) x 2-3 mm, c. 2 x sepals, oblanceolate, distally outcurved to form hypocrateriform pseudo-tubular corolla, rounded, with basal ligulate appendage oblanceolate-spathulate to narrowly oblong with margin incurved. Stamens 18-c. 48 (i.e. single fascicle 5-10, double fascicles 5-29), with filaments in each fascicle c. 0.6-0.7 united, the longest 2.5-6.5 mm (long-styled) or 6-9 mm (short-styled), 0.3-0.5 x petals (long- styled) or 0.75-0.95 x petals (short-styled), persistent in fruit. Fasciclodes (lodicules) c. 0.6-0.7 mm long, flat-topped. Ovary 0.5-4 x 0.5-1 mm, narrowly ellipsoid to very narrowly ovoid-conic, acute to truncate; styles 0.5-1 mm (short-styled) or 2.3-3.2 mm (long-styled), 0.25-0.33 x ovary (short-styled) or 2.25-4 x ovary (long-styled), erect; ovules ∞ on each placenta. Capsule 5-7 x 3-3.5 mm, cylindric-ellipsoid to rather broadly ellipsoid, longer than sepals, with valves longitudinally vittate. Seeds dark brown, c. 1.5 mm long, ecarinate; testa finely linear-foveolate to linear-rugulose; caruncle often lobed (cf. Reynaud, 1985: 91, t. 2, ff. 5, 6).