Hypericum aegypticum (Nomenclature)
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).
2n = 20 (subsp. maroccanum) (Ornduff in Robson, 1977a: 334).
In fissures of limestone rocks or on limestone scree in valleys, often coastal; 30-c. 1600m (Morocco), c. 1000-1 200m (Algeria), 0-500 m (Malta, Lampedusa), 700-800 m (Sardinia), 0-300 m (Ionian Islands, Peloponnisos), coastal (Crete), 1-750 m (Cyrenaica).
South Morocco (coast, Grande Atlas, Anti-Atlas), Algeria (Atlas), Lampedusa, Maltese Islands (Malta, Gozo, Comino), Sardinia (south-east), Ionian Islands (Kefallinia, Zakinthos), Greece (eastern Peloponnisos), Crete (north-west, north-east), Libya (Cyrenaica near Derna). Not known from Egypt.
H. aegypticum has a very disjunct distribution from south Morocco via the southern slope of the Atlas Mts in Algeria, Lampedusa, Malta, Sardinia, the Ionian lalands, the Peloponnese and Crete to Cyrenaica, the whole forming a morphological and geographical cline in the direction indicated. Thus the Moroccan and Algerian plants are erect (to 2 m) with long sessile leaves and large flowers, the island and Peloponnese plants are erect to spreading with intermediate length, sessile to subpetiolate leaves and intermediate- sized flowers, and the Libyan plants are low and spreading with small petiolate leaves and small flowers. Throughout this wide range the variation is almost continuous; but it is possible, I think, to separate an island and Peloponnese form from the African forms at subspecies level, viz. as subspp. maroccanum, webbii and aegypticum.
H. aegypticum is the most primitive species in sect. Adenotrias, its nearest relative apparently being a Socotran member of sect. 1. Campylosporus, H. balfourii. It differs from the Socotran plant in size of leaf and flower, but also particularly in the heterostyly and other adaptations for specialised insect pollination (pseudo-tubular flowers, petal appendages, fasciclodes acting like grass lodicules by swelling to open the flower, stamen filaments united) and dispersal (carunculate seeds). The narrow leaves of the primitive (Moroccan) form are more similar to the those of H. balfourii than to those of the latter's close relative, another Socotran endemic, H. socotranum.
This species occurs in Libya (Cyrenaica) but not Egypt. The specimen in Paris seems to be the only possible type material known - there is nothing relevant among Linnaeus's correspondence with Bernard de Jussieu at the Linnean Society. An examination of the microfiche shows that this specimen would appear to be from the Libyan population; and, as it is said to come from Egypt, I have designated it as the lectotype.