Hypericum russeggeri (Nomenclature)
Shrub or shrublet 0.1-0.3 m tall, much branched, spreading to prostrate, with branches ascending to prostrate, often tortuous; wholly glabrous, without dark glands. Stems 4-lined and ancipitous at first, soon 2-lined, glaucous, with internodes shorter to rarely longer than leaves. Leaves free, sessile or subsessile, persistent until second season; lamina 4-20 x 1.5-3 mm, narrowly oblanceolate, concolorous, densely glaucous, coriaceous, apex obtuse, margin plane or proximally incurved, base cuneate; venation: apparently 1- nerved, with midrib sometimes prominent beneath; laminar glands dense. Inflorescence 3-7(-9)-flowered, terminal and sometimes also terminating short shoots or solitary in axils of lowermost (fallen) leaves; bracts foliar; bracteoles linear, squamiform, deciduous; peduncle 10-20 mm long, pedicels 1.5-2.5 mm long. Flowers c. 10 mm in diam.; buds narrowly ovoid-ellipsoid, subacute. Sepals green, 2-3 x 0.7-0.9 mm, imbricate, subequal, narrowly oblong to narrowly triangular-lanceolate, subrounded to acute, plane to incurved, stiffly erect; veins 5(-7?), only midrib sometimes prominent, unbranched; laminar glands linear; submarginal glands dense. Petals rather pale yellow, deciduous, 6-9 x c. 3.5 mm, c. 3 x sepals, oblanceolate, distally outcurved to form hypocrateriform pseudo-tubular corolla, rounded, with basal ligulate appendage oblanceolate? with margin incurved. Stamens c. 30 (i.e. single fascicles c. 8, double fascicles c. 10-12), with filaments in each fascicle c. 0.8 united, the longest c. 3-4.5 mm (long-styled) or 4.5-5 mm (short-styled), deciduous later than petals. Ovary 1.5 x 0.7 mm, narrowly ellipsoid, acute; styles c. 1.5 mm (short-styled) or 2 mm (long-styled), about equalling ovary (short-styled) or c. 1.35 x ovary (long-styled), suberect; ovules 2 on each placenta one ascending, one pendent. Capsule 2.5-4 x c. 1-1.5 mm, cylindric-ellipsoid, longer than sepals, with valves longitudinally vittate. Seeds blackish brown, c. 2 mm long, ecarinate; testa finely densely linear- scalariform; caruncle lobed (cf. Reynaud, 1985: 91, t. 2 ff. 1-2).
2n = 20(n= 10; Reynaud, 1981).
Among calcareous rocks; sea level -100 m.
Turkey (Hatay; probably extinct in Canakkale); Syria (northern coast).
H. russeggeri differs from H. aegypticum in (for example) leaf shape, the deciduous petals and stamens and the 2-ovulate placentae. It 'continues' the discontinuous eastward cline of that species beyond Crete, into Asia Minor and Syria, where it occurs in similar maritime and submaritime habitats. It would appear to be extinct near Edremit (if Montbret's locality is accurate) and to be restricted now to the coast and foothills of the southern Amanus mountains (Gâvur dağlari) and Akra Dağ round the mouth of the Orontes (Asi). Boissier's 1846 locality 'ad ruinas Seleuciae' refers to Seleucia Pieria at the mouth of the Orontes, not to Seleucia (Silifke) on the coast south-east of Mersin (vil. Iҫel).
The labels on the Kotschy and Montbret Triadenia russeggeri Fenzl collections of 1836 have led to a certain amount of confusion. Most specimens of Kotschy 101 merely state 'In monte Tauro'. The Edinburgh specimen, however, has 'Syria, Svedia' (i.e. Turkey, vil. Hatay) and Kotschy 111 (K) has 'circa Swediam prope Antioch'. It would seem likely, then, that Svedia is the type locality.