Hypericum edisonianum (Nomenclature)
Shrub 0.3-1 .5 m tall, erect, often unbranched below, much branched pseudo-dichotomously above, forming spreading flat-topped crown; horizontal roots bearing adventitious shoots form thickets. Stems red-brown, 4-6-lined and ancipitous when young, soon 2-lined; cortex exfoliating in strips; bark thin, reddish brown to grey, not corky. Leaves sessile, appressed or spreading, 15-26 x 5-8(- ll) mm, elliptic, margin subrecurved to subincrassate, paler beneath, markedly glaucous above only, coriaceous, soon deciduous at base leaving prominent gland-like auricles, apex obtuse to acute, base cuneate to subrounded; venation: up to 4 pairs of laterals sometimes visible: laminar glands dense. Inflorescence 1-flowered with repeated pseudo-dichotomous branching; pedicels 3-5 mm; bracts foliar; bracteoles lanceolate. Flowers 15-20 mm in diam.; buds compressed-subglobose. Sepals 4, markedly unequal, not? enlarging in fruit; outer (8-)9-13(-17) x (5-)6-8(-9) mm, broadly ovate, acute to subacuminate, base cordate, basal veins 5-7, midrib not or obscurely branched; inner c. 5-6 x 0.6-1.2 mm, linear- lanceolate, acuminate, basal veins 5, midrib unbranched. Petals 4, bright? yellow, (10-) 12-1 8 x (5-)6-l 1 mm, c. 1 .2 x sepals, obovate with apiculus lateral, acute. Stamens c. 70-80, longest 6-7 mm, c. 0.5 x petals. Ovary 3-merous, 3.5-4 x c. 1.5 mm, narrowly triangular-ovoid, acute, placentation parietal?; styles 3-4, 2-3 mm long, 0.6-0.75 x ovary, wholly appressed. Capsule 5-8 x (3?-)4 mm, triangular-ovoid, acute, 3-4-lobed. Seeds brown to yellow- brown, c. 0.8 mm long, ecarinate; testa 'reticulate' (Godfrey & Wooten).
In sandy soil of low prairies, in marshy areas in pine flatwoods and at pond margins; lowland.
U.S.A. (central peninsular Florida - Highlands, Glades and De Solo Counlies).
H. edisonianum is a derivative of 25. H. crux-andreae, from which it can be distinguished by the smaller, thicker, obtuse to acute leaves, the pseudo-dichotomous branching and the paired persistent gland-like auricles at the base of each leaf. Ward (1980) suggested that H. edisonianum had been isolated on the Lake Wales Ridge of central peninsular Florida during Pleistocene flooding, when much of Florida was beneath sea level.