Hypericum chapmanii (Nomenclature)
Shrub, usually one-stemmed and tree-like, up to 4 m tall, erect, with branches narrowly ascending. Stems orange-brown, 4-lined and ancipitous when young, soon 4-angled, eventually terete; cortex exfoliating in thin papery sheets or plates, exposing reddish brown to cinnamon bark beneath; bark spongy, thick, appearing fluted when torn apart owing to the presence of large vertically aligned laticifers, furrowing and disintegrating to expose stringy covering of the laticifers. Leaves light green (cf. H. fasciculatum), sessile, (8-)l 1- 16(-25) x 5-7 mm, with those in axils as long, linear-subulate, with margin revolute, overarching all but the raised midrib area beneath and forming 2 longitudinal grooves lined with papillae, chartaceous, deciduous at basal articulation, apex narrowly acute, base parallel or slightly expanded; midrib unbranched; laminar glands dense, in 2 regular rows beneath and scattered above. Inflorescence 1-3-flow- ered, without accessory flowers, often with 1-3 flowers in axil of leaves at 1-2 nodes below, the whole then shortly cylindric; pedicels absent; bracts foliar. Flowers 12-15 mm indiam.; buds ovoid, acute. Sepals 5, 5-7 x 0.5 mm, unequal, linear-subulate, acute, with margin revolute, 1-veined, midrib unbranched. Petals 5, bright? yellow, 7-9 x 3-4.5 mm, c. 1.3-1.4 x sepals, oblong-spathulate, with apiculus lateral, acute. Stamens c. 75, longest 5-5.5 mm (or longer?), c. 0.7 x petals. Ovary 3-merous, c. 3 x 1 mm, very narrowly pyramidal- ovoid, acute, placentation parietal; styles 3, 2.5-4 mm long, c. 0.7-1 x ovary, slightly separating at apex in fruit. Capsule c. 6 x 2.4 mm, narrowly pyramidal-ovoid, 3-sulcate. Seeds dull brown, 0.6-0.8 mm long, ecarinate?; testa finely foveolate-reticulate.
Flatwoods, depressions, margins of cypress ponds, and borrow pits; lowland.
U.S.A. (NW Florida).
H. chapmanii is apparently a local derivative of H. fasciculatum, differing from that species in its taller single-stemmed habit, thicker stems (100-150 mm as opposed to up to 50 mm) that are less markedly ancipitous when young, spongy bark with large laticifers that give a striated or fluted aspect and darken with age, lighter green leaves that are markedly ascending, and a fewer-flowered inflorescence. It would be interesting to know how these differences arose and are apparently maintained between two species with similar habitats and with the distributional area of one completely within that of the other.
Adams (1962) failed to locate a Chapman specimen of H. arborescens dating from 1892 or earlier, and I have not seen one either. Herb. Biltmore no. 5735a (see below) serves as a representative specimen until a type is discovered.