Hypericum athoum Boiss. & Orph.

Perennial herb with stems 0.1-0.25 m long, weak, procumbent from creeping, rooting and branching base, with herbaceous taproot, many-stemmed, unbranched and densely to rather sparsely pilose below inflorescence. Stems green, terete; internodes exceeding leaves, eglandular. Leaves with petiole 0.5-1.5 mm; lamina 8-15 x 5-10 mm, broadly ovate or suborbicular to rather broadly elliptic, concolorous, thinly chartaceous, not glaucous, softly patent-pubescent above, villous beneath, more densely so along veins, plane, spreading; apex rounded, margin entire, base broadly cuneate to truncate or subcordate; venation: 3 pairs of laterals curved-ascending from lower 0.35-0.4 of midrib, tertiary reticulation rather dense, obscure, not prominent; laminar glands pale, rather dense (but absent near midrib), subequal; intramarginal glands black, rather dense to sparse. Inflorescence (l)2-7(-l l)-flowered from terminal node, without flowering branches below, V-shaped, rather dense; pedicels 1-2.5 mm; bracts and bracteoles lanceolate, black-glandular-ciliate, at least lowermost pair rather densely glandular-auriculate. Flowers c. 10 mm in diam.; buds ellipsoid, rounded. Sepals 3.5-4.5 x 0.8-1.2 mm, equal, free or shortly united, lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, acute, with margin long-glandular-ciliate; veins 3, outer ones sometimes branching; laminar glands pale, striiform to punctiform; marginal glands black, flat-topped. Petals rather pale yellow, faintly veined red, 7-9.5 x c. 2 mm, 2-2.5 x sepals, elliptic, obtuse, apiculus absent; laminar glands absent; marginal glands subapical, black, few, sessile or on short cilia. Stamens c. 25, longest 5-6 mm, c. 0.7 x petals; anther gland black. Ovary 2.5 x 1.5 mm, ellipsoid; styles c. 5 mm, 2 x ovary, spreading. Capsule c. 4.5 x 2.5 mm, ellipsoid, about equalling sepals, enclosed when developing by petals twisting together. Seeds dark red-brown, 0.6 mm long; testa shalowly and finely reticulate-scalariform.