Hypericum dolabriforme (Nomenclature)
Subshrub 0. 1 5-0.5 m tall, decumbent and woody (but not rooting) at base, with short or elongate branches at base or throughout stem. Stems green?, 4-lined and ancipitous above, 2-lined to terete below; cortex exfoliating in strips. Leaves sessile, widely spreading: lamina (main stem) 20-35 x 3-5 mm, linear-elliptic or linear-oblong to linear, margin recurved to revolute, pale or slightly glaucous? beneath, subcoriaceous, the lower deciduous slightly above base, apex obtuse to acute, base narrowly cuneate to rounded; venation: only midrib apparent; laminar glands dense. Inflorescence (l-)3-c. 20- flowered, regularly dichasial, widely branched, without accessory flowers, rarely with single flowers from axil below, the whole obconic; pedicels 1.5-2 mm long; bracts foliar, reduced, oblong to lanceolate. Flowers c. 15-20 mm in diam.; buds ellipsoid, acuminate. Sepals 5, 5-8(-15) x 2-3(-8) mm, not enlarging in fruit?, imbricate, very unequal, ovate-lanceolate to lanceolate, foliaceous, acuminate, margin distally revolute; basal veins 3, laterals sometimes branched. Petals 5, 'golden' yellow, 10-13 x 4-5 mm, c. 1.6-2 x sepals, curved-dolabriform, with apiculus conspicuous, termino-lateral, acute. Stamens 120-200, longest 5-7 mm, c. 0.5 x petals. Ovary 3-merous, 2.5-3 x 1.5-2 mm, ovoid-conic, acuminate, placentation parietal; styles 3, 3.5-4 mm, 1.35-1.4 x ovary, sometimes separating above in fruit. Capsule 4-7(-9) x 3-3.5(-4) mm, ovoid-conic, rostrate, 3-gonous above. Seeds reddish, 1.5-1.8 mm long, carinate; testa reticulate-scalariform.
2n = 18 (n = 9, Adams in Robson & Adams, 1968).
Limestone outcrops, cedar glades and dry rocky stream-beds; lowland to c. 500 m in Georgia.
U.S.A. (from extreme southern Indiana and north-central Kentucky southward through eastern Tennessee to north-western Georgia; probably introduced into Connecticut).
H. dolabriforme is a relict species of which the affinities are not immediately apparent. Adams (1962: 41) claimed it to be most closely related to 20. H. sphaerocarpum, which is similarly semi-woody with linear leaves, axillary leaf-clusters, an almost wholly terminal dichasial inflorescence and somewhat unequal sepals. The capsules of H. dolabriforme, however, are much bigger, the inflorescence branches more widely spreading, the sepals much more unequal and recurved-acuminate (rarely subrecurved and obtuse to acute), the petals curved-dolabriform, the stamens more numerous (120-200, not 70-95) and the seeds much larger. All these characters, except the linear leaves and large seeds, can however be derived easily from those of 23. H. myrtifolium; and the leaves, though narrow, are of similar texture and colour. The larger seeds need not be an insuperable obstacle to a relationship with H. myrtifolium, which seems to be directly related to 1. H. frondosum like the 4-petalled 'Ascyrum' species.
I agree with Adams (1962: 41) that H. bissellii is a synonym of H. dolabriforme. Robinson's illustration could be of H. sphaerocarpum, but the type specimen clearly belongs to H. dolabriforme. Considering that this species is otherwise confined to west or south of the Appalachians, the record from a street in a Connecticut town is likely to have resulted from an introduction.