Hypericum pruinatum (Nomenclature)
Shrublet or perennial herb, 0.1–0.22 m tall, puberulous up to the sepals at least when young, erect or ascending from rooting and branching base, with short axillary shoots from all nodes below inflorescence. Stems densely puberulous when young, sometimes eventually glabrous, shallowly 2-lined, green, sometimes with scattered raised elongate reddish glands; internodes 3–12 mm, exceeding leaves. Leaves sessile or to 0.5 mm petiolate, densely puberulous, not glaucous, (main stem) lamina 5–14 × 1.3–4.2 mm, oblong to elliptic or lanceolate, apex rounded, margin recurved to revolute, base broadly cuneate to rounded, with 2–3 pairs of parallel to ascending lateral veins; laminar glands pale, punctiform, ± dense, without apical black gland; intramarginal glands absent; leaves on axillary shoots smaller, linear, apiculate. Inflorescence 1–c. 20-flowered, from 1–3 nodes, laxly pyramidal to narrowly cylindric, 20–45 mm long, with lateral ‘cymules’ 1-flowered, with 1-3 pairs of flowering branches below; bracts and bracteoles ovate to elliptic, entire. Flowers 15–20 mm in diam., petals erect after flowering; buds narrowly ovoid-ellipsoid, rounded. Sepals subequal to unequal, free or basally united, slightly imbricate, 2–5 × 1–2 mm, broadly oblong to broadly elliptic, rounded to obtuse; veins 3–5, the outer branching, prominent or not; margin with very small globose black glands on short cilia or entire; laminar glands pale, linear to striiform. Petals pale? yellow, veined red, 9–14 × 3–5 mm, 3–5 × sepals, narrowly oblanceolate; marginal glands black, subapical, very small, sessile or absent; laminar glands pale, linear to punctiform. Stamens c. 35–40, longest 5–9 mm; filaments yellow. Ovary c. 2 × 1 mm, narrowly ovoid; styles c. 6 mm, 3 × ovary. Capsule 7–10 × 3–5 mm, narrowly ovoid. Seeds red-brown; testa “foveolata”.
Among rocks in open upland woodland; 1800–2600 m.
Northeastern Turkey, southwestern Georgia.
Hypericum pruinatum forms the end of a geomorphologic reduction trend (neurocalycinum – kotschyanum – pruinatum) from western Anatolia to Georgia. It differs from H. kotschyanum in the shorter indumentum, smaller broader leaves, fewer-flowered inflorescence branches, smaller black marginal glands on sepals and petals, and petals that become erect after flowering. It is specialised in having free (or almost free) imbricate sepals.
The epithet pruinatum is rather misleading in that the vegetative parts do not have a bloom. The very short dense indumentum sometimes has a whitish look that gives a ‘frosted’ appearance.