Hypericum brasiliense
Subshrub (? or annual herb) 0.3-1 m tall, erect, 1-stemmed with branches divaricate-ascending, lateral, numerous, becoming naked below. Stems vinous? red, 4-lined, and ancipitous when young, eventually terete, cortex exfoliating in strips; internodes (5-)10-90 mm long, shorter to longer than leaves. Leaves sessile, spreading; lamina 8-30 x 2-7(-ll) mm, narrowly elliptic to narrowly oblong or rarely lanceolate, plane, usually paler beneath, not glaucous, chartaceous; apex acute to rounded, base cuneate, not decurrent, free; basal or near-basal veins 3-9, midrib with 2-c. 9 pairs of branches, tertiary reticulum dense (usually obscure) or absent (?); laminar glands dense, not prominent. Inflorescence c. 9-17 (-24)-flowered, dichasial/monochasial, sometimes with short accessory branches from terminal node, with lateral branches from up to 8 nodes below, the whole narrowly cylindric to narrowly or broadly pyramidal; primary pedicels 2-6 mm long; bracts and bracteoles narrowly lanceolate to linear. Flowers 10-15 mm in diam., stellate; buds narrowly ovoid, acute to rounded. Sepals 3.5-6 x 0.7-2 mm, subequal, basally imbricate, linear-lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, acute; veins 5(3), all becoming prominent; glands linear. Petals yellow, 5-8 x 2-4.5 mm, 1.3-1.5 x sepals, narrowly obovate-oblong; apiculus acute; glands linear. Stamens c. 75, 5-fascicled, longest 3-4.5 mm long. c. 0.6 x petals. Ovary 1.5-2 x 0.8-1.1 mm, narrowly ellipsoid; styles 5 (or very rarely 4), 2-2.5 mm long, 1.2-1.35 x ovary, spreading-incurved; stigmas slightly enlarged to narrowly capitate. Capsule (5-)6 x (2.5-)3 mm, cylindric or rarely ovoid-cylindric, almost always exceeding sepals. Seeds 0.5-0.6 mm long; testa finely ribbed-scalariform.
Mostly n = 8, but also n = 4, 9, 11, 16 and 17 - a facultative apomict (Ribeiro de Moraes, Pinto Maglio & Lombello, 2009); 24? (see p. xx).
Damp meadows, ditches, roadsides, and waste places; 300 (Santa Catarina) - 2525 (Espirito Santo) m.
Brazil (Bahia, Espirito Santo, and Minas Geraes to Santa Catarina), Paraguay (Amambay?), Bolivia (La Paz, Santa Cruz), Argentina (Corrientes, Chaco, Tucuman).
H. brasiliense can be distinguished from all members of the H. campestre group (Spp. 21-27), with which it has been frequently confused, by the cylindric capsule that almost always exceeds the sepals. It is the only 5-styled suffruticose species with such a capsule. For differences between H. brasiliense and 17. H. denudatum, see p. xx. Even though the exclusion of the H. campestre group reveals it to be much less variable than has hitherto been thought, H. brasiliense still shows considerable variation. The plants that occur in the northern part of its range (Bahia to Minas Geraes and Rio de Janeiro) include those most similar to H. campestre, with 7-9 veined leaves, a narrow inflorescence, and narrow sepals that sometimes almost equal the capsule in length. From this form, two morpho-geographical trends are apparent: (i) Southward the narrow inflorescence persists into Paraná and western Santa Catarina, but the leaves and flowers become smaller and the sepals broader. This trend leads to 20. H. polyanthemum. (ii) The forms represented in trend (i) are apparently rare in São Paulo, where representatives of H. brasiliense tend to be more laxly branched and more numerous-flowered (H. laxiusculum). Such plants also occur in states adjacent to São Paulo, but they are characteristic of a western trend (Paraguay, northern Argentina, Bolivia) ('H. stylosum') in which the flowers become smaller and the leaves sometimes broader - but not with more numerous basal veins. Extreme forms of both these trends are linked to typical H. brasiliense by a series of intermediates, so that no infraspecific taxa can be recognised.
The type specimen of H. brasiliense Choisy, which was cited as the type by Rodriguez Jimenez and is so labelled, cannot be the one on which Choisy based his description, as it is dated 1830. There is no specimen of H. brasiliense in Herb. De Candolle (G-DC) and none in the main Geneva herbarium (G) or in Paris (P) that could be the holotype. I therefore select Gaudichaud 1, which was annotated by Choisy, as the neotype.