Hypericum aucheri (Nomenclature)
Perennial herb 0.09–0.35 m tall, erect or decumbent and sometimes rooting at the base, with stems few to numerous, sometimes with branches from base and/or upper stem nodes. Stems narrowly 2-lined, with amber to reddish scattered glands (not on lines); internodes 4–25 mm, shorter than to longer than leaves. Leaves sessile to subsessile, ascending; lamina 4–20(–24) × 1–6 mm, linear to lanceolate or narrowly elliptic or oblong-elliptic or (lower) oblanceolate, slightly paler beneath, chartaceous; apex obtuse to rounded, margin plane to revolute, base cuneate to rounded; venation: without or with 1–3 pairs of main branches from lower 2/5–1/2 of midrib, reticulate venation obscure or absent; laminar glands pale, punctiform, dense; intramarginal glands black, small, regular to irregular and few or sometimes absent. Inflorescence 3–c. 50-flowered, from 1–3 nodes, sometimes with flowering branches from 1–3 nodes below, the whole broadly pyramidal to cylindric; bracts and bracteoles ovate-lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, margin glandular- or eglandular-setaceous, without auricles. Flowers 12–18 mm in diam.; buds ovoid-ellipsoid, acute. Sepals equal, not or slightly imbricate, basally connate, 4.5–6 ×1.5–3 mm (excluding fimbriae), linear-lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, acute, irregularly glandular-fimbriate; veins 3, unbranched; laminar glands pale, punctiform to striiform, rarely also 1–2 black, elongate-punctiform; marginal glands black, on and sometimes between fimbriae. Petals bright yellow, 7–12 × 3–4 mm, 1.8–2 × sepals, ± curved oblong-lanceolate, rounded; laminar glands pale and rarely a few black, punctiform; marginal glands black, sessile or on denticles or cilia. Stamens 50–60, ‘3’-fascicled, longest 5–10 mm, c. 0.7–0.8 × petals; anther gland amber. Ovary 1.5 × 1 mm, ovoid; styles 3, c. 4 mm, c. 3 × ovary, diverging. Capsule c. 5–6 × 3–4 mm, about equalling sepals, ovoid, rather sparsely vittate. Seeds not seen; testa reticulate-scalariform (Stefanoff, 1932, t. 4 f. 3).
2n = 16 (Reynaud, 1973).
Stony or sandy open habitats, usually on calcareous ground but also on siliceous soil, sometimes a field weed; 60–1500 m.
Northeastern Greece (eastern Makedhonia, Thrakia, Thasos), central & southeastern Bulgaria, European & northwestern Anatolian Turkey.
Hypericum aucheri is related to 1. H. thasium but is smaller in all parts and differs in particular in the trimerous gynoecium. It does not have the glandular-auriculate bracts that in H. thasium foreshadow the glandular-auriculate leaves of 3. H. adenotrichum and 4. H. orientale; and it therefore would appear to have been independently derived from H. thasium or its predecessor.
The variations described by Jordanov & Kožukharov (1970) do not seem to be worthy of taxonomic recognition. On the other hand, H. kazdagense does deserve further consideration. This taxon, said to be endemic to the Kazdağ mountains by Gemici & Leblebici (1995), was described as distinct from H. aucheri, which grows in the same area. It was said to differ from H. aucheri in having an amber (not black) anther gland, a dichasial inflorescence, dimorphic leaves on respectively fertile and sterile shoots, and a reticulate-fove[ol]ate seed testa. The anther and inflorescence characters are not differentia, as both are typical of H. aucheri, and the seed testa of that species, as far as I can discern from Stefanoff’s (1932) illustration, is not very different (reticulate-scalariform). The shoots of H. kazdaghense, from the photographs in Dirmenci, Satil & Tümen (2007), are divergent-ascending rather than prostrate as described, which leaves the dimorphic leaves as the only distinguishing character of H. kazdaghense. This taxon would therefore seem to be no more than a high-altitude form of H. aucheri that scarcely warrants taxonomic differentiation without further investigation.