Hypericum aciculare (Nomenclature)
Shrub 0.3-2 m tall, erect and bushy to decumbent and slender, with branches strict to ascending, lateral and frequently pseudo-dichotomous. Stems orange-brown, 4-lined and ± ancipitous when young, eventually terete, cortex exfoliating irregularly; internodes 1-7 mm long. Leaves sessile, subimbricate or not, suberect, outcurving and usually twisting, not or scarcely tetrastichous, deciduous above base without fading; lamina 3.5-7 x 0.4-0.6 mm, very narrowly elliptic to hnear-acicular, incurved, slightly cucullate, midrib impressed beneath, margin very narrowly hyaline, concolorous, not glaucous, subcoriaceous to chartaceous; apex acute, base parallel-sided, not sheathing, scarcely broadening but pairs forming narrow interfoliar ridge; basal vein 1, unbranched; laminar glands dense to very sparse, visible beneath. Inflorescence 1-flowered, terminal, with pseudo-dichotomous branches from node below and terminating short unbranched lateral shoots; pedicel 1.5-2.5 mm long, not incrassate upwards; upper leaves not transitional. Flowers 10-17 mm in diam., stellate. Sepals 4-7.5 x 0.7-1.5 mm, narrowly lanceolate, acute, incurved above, margin hyaline, veins (3)5, midrib not prominent but whole sepal often becoming ribbed; glands linear, distally punctiform. Petals yellow or apricot to orange, sometimes tinged red, 6-10 x 3-7 mm, c. 1.5 x sepals, oblong-obovate, apiculus sharply acute; glands striiform to punctiform. Stamens 30-55, longest 3-5 mm long, c. 0.5 x petals. Ovary 1.5-2.5 x 1-1.5 mm, ellipsoid-subglobose; styles 3, 2.5-3(4) mm long, 1.2-2 x ovary, outcurving-ascending; stigmas narrow. Capsule 3.5-4 x 2.5-3.5 mm, broadly ellipsoid, shorter than sepals. Seeds 1.2 mm long, ecarinate; testa finely scalariform.
Dry, open scrub on slopes of paramo, dense moist forested slopes, and wet sphagnum; 1800-3700 m.
Ecuador (Azuay, Loja), Peru (Piura, Amazonas).
H. aciculare differs essentially from H. sprucei in habit and size of parts. It most resembles some populations of the latter from Chimborazo, from which it is separated by a disjunction of merely c. 100 km. Other, less similar populations of H. sprucei, however, are found in the same area as H. aciculare, which occurs in two ecologically somewhat distinct forms with widely overlapping areas of distribution. If these forms prove to be genetically distinct, it may be possibleto recognise them as subspecies, as they are almost always distinguishable from one another. Plants on open or forested paramo slopes are bushy with branching mostly pseudo- dichotomous, whereas those in marshes and seepages are slender with branching mostly lateral (records marked*). Keller (1908 supra) keys out H. aciculare with H. nitidum Lam. as having connate styles. If his material did indeed belong to this species, then he must have interpreted it wrongly.