Hypericum quitense R. Keller

Shrub or shrublet 0.3- l(-l.5) m tall, erect or spreading, with branches divergent, lateral, short (flowering) and long (extension), not pseudo-dichotomous. Stems reddish-brown, 4-lined and markedly ancipitous when young, eventually terete, without wrinkles or corky emergences, cortex exfohating in flakes; internodes 4-10 mm long. Leaves sessile, spreading to deflexed, 60obscurely tetrastichous, turning brown, deciduous with the cortex; lamina 4-9.5 x 2-5.5 mm, sometimes increasing in size along shoot, oblong (lower) to broadly ovate, plane or slightly saccate or conduplicate, midrib prominent beneath, margin narrowly hyaline, otherwise pale green but not or only slightly glaucous, subcoriaceous; apex acute (lower) to obtuse, base broadly cuneate, pairs shortly united; basal or near-basal veins 3(5), with laterals and sometimes midrib branching, tertiary reticulum obscure or apparently absent; laminar glands mainly peripheral, dense, rather large, not prominent. Inflorescence 1 -flowered, terminal and on very short lateral shoots, the whole shoot narrowly cylindrical, without pseudo-dichotomous branches; pedicel 3-7 mm long; upper leaves foliose. Flowers 8-12 mm in diam., stellate. Sepals 5 x 1-2 mm, elliptic to narrowly oblong, the outer sometimes broader, apiculate-obtuse to acute, subcucullate, margin narrowly hyaline; veins 3-5, not or scarcely branching, all prominent; glands all linear or distally punctiform. Petals bright yellow, 5-6.5 x 3-4 mm, 1.5-2 x sepals, obovate; apiculus subacute to obtuse; glands few, striiform and punctiform. Stamens 30-45, longest 3-4 mm long, c. 0.65 x petals. Ovary 1.5-2 x 0.7-1 mm, narrowly ovoid; styles 3, 3-4 mm long, c. 2 x ovary, spreading; stigmas broadly capitate. Capsule 3-4.5 x 2.5-3.5, ellipsoid, equalling or slightly exceeding sepals. Seeds c. 0.7 mm long, ecarinate, testa finely scalariform.