Hypericum athoum (Nomenclature)
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.
Rock crevices and rocky places in shade, on limestone (marble) or gneiss; 700-2000 m.
Greece (Athos Peninsula, Thasos, Samothraki).
H. athoum is closely related to H. delphicum, differing from it in the spreading, more delicate habit, smaller petiolate leaves, softer indumentum and smaller- and fewer-flowered inflorescence. It has a similarly disjunct distribution relative to 18. H. annulatum subsp. annulatum, but in the north Aegean region.