Hypericum barbatum (Nomenclature)
Perennial herb 0.1–0.3(–0.4) m tall, erect to ascending, sometimes rooting, with stems few to several, unbranched below inflorescence, but usually branched at base. Stems narrowly and incompletely 2-lined, eglandular, not glaucous; internodes 10–45 mm, equalling or usually exceeding leaves. Leaves sessile or rarely subsessile, not amplexicaul, erect to ascending or rarely spreading; lamina 8–30 × 2–10 mm, lanceolate to linear-oblong or linear, pale beneath, chartaceous; apex subacute, margin recurved to plane or revolute, entire, base rounded to (usually broadly) cuneate; venation: 3 pairs of main laterals from lower ⅓ to 2/5 of midrib, sometimes branched, without or with obscure visible tertiary reticulation; laminar glands pale and sometimes black, scattered, sparse to rather dense; marginal glands black, irregular. Inflorescence 3–c. 35-flowered, from 1–3 nodes, without flowering branches below, the whole obconic to broadly pyramidal; pedicels 1–4 mm; bracts and bracteoles reduced-foliar to narrowly lanceolate, the upper glandular-ciliate and -auriculate. Flowers (10–)15–25 mm in diam., stellate; buds cylindric-ellipsoid to broadly ellipsoid, rounded. Sepals 5, equal, almost free, 3.5–6 × 1.5–3 mm, lanceolate, acute, margin eglandular-fimbriate; veins 3–5, branching, slightly prominent; laminar glands black, linear to punctiform; marginal glands absent. Petals 5, bright? yellow, sometimes tinged or veined red dorsally, 10–14 × 3.5–6 mm, oblong-lanceolate to elliptic, rounded; laminar glands black, punctiform scattered; marginal glands black, irregularly spaced, sessile. Stamens 60–80, longest 6–10 mm, 0.6–0.7 × petals. Ovary 2.5–3 × 1.5–2 mm, pyramidal-ovoid to ellipsoid; styles 5–6 mm, 2 × ovary. Capsule 5–9 × 3.5–7 mm, ovoid to pyramidal-ovoid; valves with ± prominent rounded amber vesicles. Seeds stramineous, 1–1.2 mm; testa ribbed.
2n = 16 (Contandriopoulos & Lanzalavi, 1968 - vars typicum, trichanthum and pindicola), 14 (Contandriopoulos & Lanzalavi, 1968 – var. epirotum; Franzén & Gustavsson, 1983).
Grassy slopes and meadows, woodland margins and clearings, sometimes among rocks, usually dry, on granitic, limestone or serpentine substrates; 200–2200 m.
Austria (Niederösterreich), Croatia, southwestern Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, southwestern Bulgaria, northwesten Greece, southern Italy.
Hypericum barbatum is closely related to H. rumeliacum but differs essentially in its eglandular sepal fimbriae. It is also more usually erect. Several varieties and forms have been based on the very variable leaves, e.g. typicum or barbatum and pindicola (usually as pindicolum) (long-oblong), acutifolium (same but narrower), oblongifolium (shorter), microphyllum (small, relatively broad), epirotum (narrow) and trichanthum (like microphyllum but stems shorter and often decumbent). These taxa were discussed by Contandriopoulos & Lanzalavi (1968) without deciding on their validity. The Austrian population is geographically but not morphologically distinct; and the other variations are neither geographically nor ecologically distinct. None is therefore worthy of taxonomic recognition.
There are indications from the chromosome counts that the larger, broader-leaved forms have 2n = 16 and the more reduced ones 2n = 14, which would make the situation in this species conform to that in H. rumeliacum, where the broader-leaved (though spreading) form (subsp. apollinis) likewise has 16 or 14 chromosomes and the narrower-leaved (though erect) one (subsp. rumeliacum) has 14.
The type collection of Hypericum aucheri var. punctato-fimbriatum Rech. f. was wrongly identified by me in 1967 as H. richeri subsp. grisebachii and is the source of the record of this subspecies from Greece in Flora europaea 2: 267 (1968). It was mentioned in a note after H. rumeliacum subsp. rumeliacum by Strid & Robson (in Strid, 1986: 606) as a possible introgressive hybrid from H. barbatum into H. rumeliacum; but I now see no reason for not including it in H. barbatum itself.