Hypericum irazuense (Nomenclature)
Shrub or small tree 0-4.5 m tall, erect, flat-topped, with branches strict, lateral and sometimes pseudo-dichotomous. Stems yellow-brown, 4-lined and ancipitous when young, becoming terete, with transverse corky emergences, cortex exfoliating in strips; internodes 1.5-4 mm long. Leaves sessile, imbricate and tetrastichous at first, spreading then becoming appressed, tardily deciduous near the base (usually after withering) or persistent; lamina 10-15 x 1.5-3.5 mm, narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate, plane to recurved, not carinate, concolorous, not glaucous, subcoriaceous to coriaceous; apex acute, base cuneate, not sheathing, pair free but with incomplete narrow interfoliar ridge; basal veins 3-5, parallel, inner pair (of 5) branching above, tertiary reticulation not visible; laminar glands rather dense, impressed above, not prominent beneath. Inflorescence 1 -flowered, terminal and on short lateral shoots, with extension shoots from 2-3 nodes below; pedicel 2-5-4 mm long; upper leaves bracteose. Flowers 25-30 mm in diam., stellate. Sepals 7.5-9 x 1.5-2 mm, linear- lanceolate, acute; veins 5, unbranched, midrib not prominent; glands mostly linear, punctiform near apex. Petals bright yellow to orange-yellow, not (?) tinged red, 13-18 x 7-10 mm, c. 2 x sepals, oblanceolate to obovate; apiculus acute; glands linear, interrupted distally. Stamens c. 100, longest 6-9 mm long, 0.35-0.5 x petals. Ovary 1.5-2.5 x 1-1.5 mm, ovoid; styles 3, 9-10 mm long, 4-6 x ovary, free, spreading, distally incurved; stigmas small. Capsule 6-7 x 4-5 mm, broadly ovoid or ellipsoid to globose, shorter than sepals. Seeds 1-1.3 mm long, scarcely carinate; testa finely scalariform.
2n = 12.
On open paramo slopes or among bamboo (Chusquea); 2700-3730 m.
Costa Rica (San José, Cartago, Limon), on the cordillera and on Volcan Irazú and V. Turrialba, and in adjacent Panama (Chiriqui).
H. irazuense has apparently been derived from H. phellos subsp. oroqueanum in a similar way to the derivation of H. stenopetalum from H. phellos subsp. phellos, but it can be distinguished from H. stenopetalum both morphologically and geographically.
The record of H. irazuense from Guatemala is apparently erroneous. A Guatemalan label was used for the Kew (K) specimen of Friedrichstal 1395, but the Chicago (F) specimen of this collection has a similar label with 'Guatemala' crossed out and replaced by 'Cartago'.