Hypericum przewalskii (Nomenclature)
Perennial herb (0.17-)0.3-0.55 m tall, erect or sometimes ascending from creeping and rooting base, with stems few to numerous, simple or usually branched below inflorescence or throughout. Stems incompletely 4-lined or 2-lined when young, nearly always soon becoming terete; internodes 25-80 mm, shorter than leaves except upper (slightly longer) or rarely all longer. Leaves sessile; lamina 20-65(-80) ´ 10-32 mm, broadly oblong or oblong-ovate to narrowly oblong or oblong-lanceolate (reducing in size down stem), rather paler beneath, not glaucous, plane, chartaceous; apex rounded to shallowly retuse, margin entire, base cordate-amplexicaul; venation: 4-6 pairs of main laterals from lower half of midrib, with subsidiary midrib branches and densely reticulate tertiary venation not or scarcely prominent beneath; laminar glands pale, dense, unequal dots or short streaks; intramarginal glands pale, dense, small. Inflorescence 1-7-flowered from 1-3 nodes, corymbiform, sometimes with flowering branches from up to 5 nodes below, the whole then narrowly pyramidal to cylindric; pedicels 12-22 mm (-45 mm in fruit); bracts and bracteoles foliose, ovate, persistent. Flowers 20-40 mm in diam., stellate; buds narrowly ovoid to cylindric, obtuse to rounded. Sepals 8-10 ´ 2-4 mm, sometimes enlarging up to 15 ´ 6.5(-8) mm in fruit, free or basally united, ± imbricate, subequal or unequal or rarely foliaceous, erect in bud, spreading to deflexed in fruit, narrowly or broadly oblong or elliptic to lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate or triangular-lanceolate, rounded to obtuse or rarely shortly mucronate, entire but margin undulate; veins (5)7-9, branching distally and reticulating, midrib scarcely differentiated; laminar glands rather sparse, ± punctiform, distal and submarginal, also a few basal, linear; marginal glands dense, small. Petals bright yellow, not tinged red in bud, 12-18 ´ 4-8 mm, 1.5-1.8 ´ sepals, oblong-oblanceolate, slightly curved, rounded, without apiculus, margin entire; laminar glands pale, linear, sometimes interrupted distally; marginal glands absent. Stamen fascicles 5, each with 15-30 stamens, longest 10-24 mm, c. 0.85-1 ´ petals; anther gland amber. Ovary 5(6)-locular, 4-9 ´ 4-6 mm, ovoid; styles 5(6), 4.5-13 mm, 1-1.8 ´ ovary, 0.5-0.9 united or appressed (when short); stigmas narrowly capitate. Capsule 14-21 ´ (5)7-14 mm, broadly to narrowly ovoid or subcylindric, 1-2.1 ´ sepals, obtuse, with numerous narrow longitudinal vittae. Seeds dark reddish-brown to greyish-brown, 1.3-1.5 mm, cylindric, not curved, shallowly carinate, without terminal expansion; testa densely shallowly linear-reticulate.
Mountain slopes, river bank thickets, meadows and roadsides; 2150-3400(-4000) m.
China (Gansu, Shaanxi, Henan, W. Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai).
H. przewalskii is closely related to H. ascyron, differing from it essentially by the obtuse to retuse leaf apex and usually 2-lined mature stem internodes. H. macrosepalum seems to be aberrant in having more persistently 4-angled internodes, but is otherwise typical of forms with foliar sepals in fruit. The remarks about variation in style length in H. ascyron (p. ) would seem to apply also to H. przewalskii. Where they are short, they seem to be almost free and appressed rather than united. Where they are short, they seem to be almost free and appressed rather thn united.
Two varints of H. przewalskii have been given specific rank, but neither would appear to merit it. H. pedunculatum (Fig. 10A) has longer narrower leaves and is more branched than H. przewalskii and, on the basis of the Wilson and Giraldi specimens, appeared at first to be distinct. A study of more abundant material from Chinese herbaria, however, revealed a complete intergradation between the two extremes. H. pedunculatum is the south-easternmost population, in western Hubei and adjacent Shaanxi, and the one nearest morphologically to H. ascyron; but it is linked by continuous variation with the one-flowered form of H. przewalskii from Sichuan and Shaanxi.