Hypericum nudiflorum Michx. ex Willd.

Shrub 0.5-2 m tall, erect, usually loosely branched, with branches ascending. Stems narrowly 4-winged at first, eventually terete, subherbaceous above, becoming brown and woody at base; cortex exfoliating in strips; bark brown. Leaves pale green, subsessile or shortly and broadly petiolate (to 2 mm long); lamina 30-70 x 7-25 mm, ovate-lanceolate or elliptic to linear-oblong, with margin plane and very narrowly pellucid, not or rarely slightly glaucous, thinly chartaceous, deciduous at lamina base, apex obtuse to rounded, base cuneate to subcordate; venation: c. 6 pairs main laterals and some- times intermediates, tertiary reticulation obscure; only midrib prominent; laminar glands dense. Inflorescence 1-c. 45-flowered, without accessory flowers, sometimes with 1-7(-c. 40)-flowered dichasia from 1-3 nodes below, the whole corymbiform or some- times rounded-pyramidal; pedicels 1.5-4 mm long; bracts c. 1.5-3 mm long, triangular-subulate. Flowers 15-20 mm in diam.; buds ellipsoid, rounded. Sepals 5, 2-5 x 1-1.5 mm, unequal to subequal, deciduous, oblanceolate-spathulate or oblong-elliptic to narrowly triangular, obtuse to acute, margins plane, basal veins 3, unbranched. Petals 5, pale or coppery yellow, 6-8 x 3-4 mm, 2.5-3 x sepals, oblanceolate-oblong to elliptic-oblong, with apiculus lateral, acute, short. Stamens c. 80, longest 4-5 mm, 0.7-0.8 x petals, deciduous. Ovary 3(4)-merous, c. 3 x 1 mm, very narrowly ovoid-ellipsoid, acute, placentation parietal; styles 3(4), c. 3 mm long, about equalling ovary, remaining appressed in fruit. Capsule 3.5-7 x 3-5 mm, broadly ellipsoid to ovoid-globose, acute. Seeds 1.5-2 mm long, black, carinate, conspicuously curved (fide Adams, 1959 ); testa scalariform-reticulate.