Hypericum orientale (Nomenclature)
Perennial herb 0.07–0.45 m tall, erect to decumbent and sometimes rooting at base, with stems numerous, spreading and branching from taproot, otherwise rarely branching below inflorescence. Stems narrowly 2-lined, eglandular or with few reddish or rarely black glands on lines or usually scattered; internodes 3–20 mm, shorter than leaves. Leaves sessile ascending to erect; lamina 10–40 × 2–5(–10) mm (excluding auricles), narrowly oblong or narrowly elliptic-oblong to linear or oblanceolate, concolorous, chartaceous; apex rounded, margin very shallowly glandular-denticulate, base narrowly cuneate with paired gland-fringed auricles; venation: 3 main veins from lower ¼ of midrib, not visibly branched; laminar glands pale, punctiform, dense; marginal glands pale, flat-topped, on denticuli. Inflorescence 3–c. 21-flowered, from 1– 3(4) nodes, often with flowering branches from 1–3(4) nodes below, the whole obpyramidal to broadly pyramidal or cylindric; bracts and bracteoles elliptic or oblong to linear, auriculate and gland-fringed. Flowers 20–c. 40 mm in diam.; buds ellipsoid, rounded. Sepals unequal, imbricate, almost free, 4–7 × (1.5–)2–4.5 mm, narrowly to broadly oblong or elliptic to obovate-spathulate or obovate, obtuse to rounded, regularly shortly glandular-denticulate; veins 5(3), not branched; laminar glands pale, linear to punctiform; marginal glands pale, on denticuli. Petals bright yellow, not tinged or veined red, 10–18 × 2.2–4.5 mm, c. 2.5 × sepals, oblanceolate, rounded, entire; laminar glands pale, linear (proximal) to punctiform (distal); marginal glands pale, lateral and apical, immersed. Stamens 30–45, ‘3’-fascicled, longest 7–13 mm, c. 0.07 × petals; anther gland amber. Ovary c. 2–4 × 1.5–2 mm, narrowly ovoid; styles 3, 5–8 mm, c. 2–2.5 × ovary, spreading to ascending. Capsule 8–11 × 3.5–4.5 mm, narrowly ovoid to ovoid-pyramidal, 1.5–2 × sepals, with numerous longitudinal vittae sometimes intermittently slightly swollen. Seeds mid brown, 1–1.5 mm; testa foveolate-scalariform.
2n = 16; n = 8 (Nielsen, 1924).
Igneous stony slopes and woodland; 0–2300 m.
Turkey (west-central, north), Georgia, Russia (northern Caucasus, Dagestan).
The three ‘species’ that Jaubert & Spach (1842) described and illustrated can be recognised in collections made in the field, the tall erect broad-leaved ‘H. tournefortii’ (var. teberdinum) mainly toward the west end of the range of the species but also in Georgia; the erect narrow-leaved ‘H. ptarmicaefolium’ (var. adzharicum; H. orientale sensu stricto) throughout the range; and the decumbent short-stemmed and short-leaved ‘H. jaubertii’ at higher altitudes and in less clement habitats. In cultivation, however, I have found all three to develop from a single collection from Georgia (Lancaster 338). There would therefore seem to be no case for recognising more than one taxon through most of the range of H. orientale. The disjunct population in Dagestan, however, has been treated as a distinct taxon by Woronow (1906), Grossheim (1932, 1962) and Gorschkova (1949), as either H. buschianum or H. orientale subsp. buschianum. From a study of the type specimen and the keys and descriptions of Woronow, Grossheim and Gorschkova, it can be seen to differ from the variable type only in the relatively shorter styles and capsule. From the cited length of the ovary, it would appear to have already started to elongate after fertilisation, the length of the styles (5 mm) being within the normal range; and the absence from the type specimen of ripe capsules would explain their relatively shorter length. This population would therefore not seem to merit taxonomic distinction.