Hypericum tomentosum L.

Perennial herb c. 0.09-0.53 m tall, erect or decumbent to prostrate, from scarcely woody taproot, branching and sometimes rooting at base, upper branches sometimes present in some or all axils, spreading to ascending, the whole plant up to sepals (dorsally) greyish villous to -tomentose or leaves hirsute to crisped-pubescent. Stems green, terete, internodes mostly exceeding leaves. Leaves sessile; lamina 5-26 x 2-11 mm, elliptic-oblong to oblong or oblanceolate or ovate to triangular-ovate, concolorous, chartaceous, not glaucous, plane, spreading; apex rounded, margin plane, entire, base cuneate to truncate or subcordate; venation: 3 pairs of laterals curved- ascending from lower 0.3-0.4 of midrib, tertiary reticulation obscure; laminar glands pale, dense, unequal, not prominent; intramarginal glands black, rather dense to sparse, sometimes irregular and becoming submarginal, or absent (then black glands wholly absent). Inflorescence 3-c. 70-flowered from up to 3 nodes, curved- corymbiform to cylindric, with flowering branches from up to most lower nodes, the whole then cylindric; pedicels 0.5-2 mm, elongating to 5-8 mm in fruit; bracts not auriculate, bracteoles linear, with apex and margin black-glandular-ciliate. Flowers 10-15(-20) mm in diam.; buds ellipsoid, obtuse to rounded-obtuse. Sepals 3-5(-6?) x 1-2.5 mm, subequal to unequal, lanceolate to ovate or broadly elliptic, acute to usually shortly aristate, with marginal glands mostly prominent; veins 3-5, unbranched; laminar glands pale, punctiform to slightly elongate, sometimes also 1-3 black, submar- ginal; marginal glands black, c. 8-16 on each side, on cilia or sessile but then nearly always prominent, the apex usually with larger gland. Petals bright yellow, not tinged or veined red, 6-11 x 2.5- 3.5(-4?) mm, c. 2 x sepals, oblanceolate, rounded, apiculus lateral, shortly acute to absent; laminar glands pale, proximally linear, distally striiform to punctiform; marginal to inframarginal glands black, few, subterminal, not prominent. Stamens c. 25-35, clearly 3- fascicled, longest 5-7 mm, 0.6-0.8 x petals; anther gland black. Ovary 1.5-2 x 1-1.3 mm, narrowly ovoid-pyramidal; styles 3.5-5.5 mm, 2.75-3.3 x ovary, widely spreading-incurved. Capsule 4-5 x 3-3.5 mm, ovoid-subglobose, shorter than sepals, enclosed by petals twisting together. Seeds 'greyish-brown' (fide Ramos, 1987), c. 0.8 mm long; testa finely reticulate-scalariform (fide Ramos, 1983: 57, t. 6 f. 1).