Hypericum cuatrecasii (Nomenclature)
Shrub up to 2 m tall, spreading, with branches divergent, lateral, ± short (flowering) and long (extension), or pseudo-dichotomous. Stems yellow to reddish-brown, 4-lined and ancipitous when young, eventually terete, without epidermal wrinkles or emergences, cortex exfoliating in strips or flakes; internodes 2-5 mm long. Leaves sessile, spreading to deflexed, obscurely tetrastichous, deciduous almost at the base after turning brown, leaving narrow basal ring; lamina (2-)4-7 x (2-)3-7 mm, gradually increasing in size along shoot, broadly ovate to subcircular, plane or slightly saccate, with midrib prominent beneath, margin not or very narrowly hyaline, not glaucous, coriaceous; apex acute to rounded, base cordate-amplexicaul, shallowly sheathing, pairs perfoliately united; basal or near-basal veins 1-3, with midrib branching, tertiary reticulum obscure; laminar glands dense to sparse, large, not prominent. Inflorescence 1-flowered, terminal and on short lateral shoots, the whole shoot ± cylindrical, sometimes with pseudo-dichotomous branches; pedicel 4-7 mm long; upper leaves foliose. Flowers c. 20 mm in diam., stellate. Sepals 5-7 x 3-4 mm, the outer ovate, subcordiform, the inner ovate-oblong, subacute to rounded, cucullate, margin narrowly to broadly hyaline; veins 7-11, obscurely branching, midrib not prominent; glands linear, distally punctiform. Petals (bright?) yellow, 9-12.5 x 6.5-7.5 mm, c. 1.8 x sepals, obliquely obovate; apiculus obtuse; glands mostly striiform, distally punctiform. Stamens c. 120-150, longest 5.6 mm long,. c.0.5 x petals. Ovary 2.5-3 x l.5-2mm,broadlyovoid;styles3(4), 5-6.5 mm long, 2 x ovary, spreading-incurved; stigmas scarcely to narrowly capitate. Capsule c. 6 x 3.5 mm, ellipsoid, slightly exceeding sepals. Seeds not seen.
In páramo and degraded forests; 1990-3000 m.
Colombia (Boyacá, Santandér), in the Péramo de Arcabuco.
H. cuatrecasii is most closely related to24.H. goyanesii, from which it is separable by the more spreading habit, and by leaf size and shape, the absence of pellucid leaf margins, smaller flowers, and shorter styles. It appears to be restricted to extreme eastern Boyacá as far as the border with Santandér.