Hypericum kiboense (Nomenclature)
Shrub or subshrub up to 2.5 m tall, spreading to straggling and often much branched, with branches strict to ascending, glabrous. Stems orange to vinous red, 2-lined and ancipitous when young, soon terete, internodes mostly shorter than leaves; cortex exfoliating in sheets or strips; bark irregular, flaking. Leaves up to 0.7 mm petiolate or rarely sessile; lamina 6-18(-21) x 2.5-7(-8) mm, oblong to elliptic-oblong or obovate, paler beneath, chartaceous, not glaucous, plane, spreading; apex rounded or mucronulate, margin plane or rarely undulate, base cuneate to rounded; venation: (2)3 pairs of laterals curved-ascending from lower c. 0.35 of midrib; tertiary reticulation well developed but rather obscure; laminar glands pale, dense, unequal, sometimes prominent, sometimes also 1-2 black, subapical, punctiform; intramarginal glands black, dense. Inflorescence 1-c. 10-flowered, from up to 3 nodes, not or scarcely congested, broadly pyramidal when fully developed, with branches from up to 2 nodes below; pedicels 2-4 mm; bracteoles reduced, lanceolate, with dense inframarginal black glands. Flowers c. 15-22 mm in diam.; buds ellipsoid, subacute. Sepals (occasionally 4), 4.5-6 x 1-2.2 mm, subequal to equal, free, oblong- lanceolate to lanceolate, acute, entire or usually with prominent marginal glands or partly glandular (rarely eglandular) -denticulate; veins 5, not branching; laminar glands pale, linear, distally interrupted to punctiform; marginal to inframarginal and occasionally submarginal glands black or occasionally reddish, dense. Petals (occasionally 4) golden yellow, tinged red dorsally, 8-11 x 3^4.5 mm, c. 2 x sepals, elliptic-oblong to oblanceolate, rounded, with apiculate obsolete, subapical; laminar glands pale, linear to distally subpunctiform; marginal and sometimes inframarginal glands black, subprominent on inner margin. Stamens c. 40-50, longest 6-10 mm, c. 0.8-0.9 x petals; anther gland black. Ovary 3(4)-locular, 3-4 x 1- 2 mm, ovoid-pyramidal to ovoid; styles 3(4), 3.5-5, 1-1.3 x ovary, spreading-subincurved. Capsule 6-7 x 3.5 mm, ovoid-pyramidal to ovoid, exceeding sepals, not enclosed by spreading, individually twisted petals. Seeds yellow-brown, c. 0.7 mm long; testa finely scalariform-foveolate.
Upland grassland, bushland and forest margins, often along streams; (1800-)2100-3900 m.
Uganda (Mt Elgon), Kenya (Mt Elgon, Aberdares, Mt Kenya, Mt Nyiru), Tanzania (Kiliminjaro, Mt Meru, Mt Oldeani, Lemagrut).
H. kiboense is a higher-altitude derivative (or relative) of H. conjungens, differing essentially from it in the shrubbier straggling habit, smaller petiolate plane-margined leaves, laxer inflorescence, more prominently glandular-denticulate sepals and fewer stamens. The more southern populations in Tanzania (on Mts Meru, Oldeani and Lemagrut) are also morphologically nearer to H. conjungens; but the nearest morphologically is Rammell F.D. 3492, from Kenya, Masai Distr. (Sp. A in Milne-Redhead (1953)). This grew at a lower altitude than the other populations and has somewhat larger leaves, rounded to subcordate at the base, and more numerous stamens. It cannot, however, be included in H. conjungens because the leaves are too narrow and mostly shortly petiolate, and is best treated as an aberrant population of H. kiboense.