Hypericum natalense (Nomenclature)
Perennial woody herb 0.2-0.45 m tall, fasciculate, with branches 1-many from underground rootstock, erect, much branched. Stems 4-lined and ancipitous when young, soon terete, eglandular. Leaves sessile or rarely to 0.5 mm petiolate; lamina 9-20 x 5-12 mm, broadly elliptic to obovate, paler but not glaucous beneath, plane, spreading; apex obtuse to rounded, base cuneate to rounded; venation: 1-3 pairs of main lateral veins, much branched to form fairly conspicuous tertiary reticulation;laminar glands pale, punctiform; intramarginal glands spaced, black. Inflorescence 1 -flowered, with (usually) paired flowering branches from 1-2 or more (up to 10) nodes below; pedicels 4-10 mm in fruit. Flowers c. 10-14 mm in diam., stellate; buds ellipsoid, obtuse. Sepals 4-8 x 1.5-4 mm, imbricate, unequal, elliptic to obovate or spathulate, rounded-subapiculate to rounded, entire; veins 5, branched and reticulating; laminar glands pale, dense, shortly striiform to punctiform; infra marginal glands few, mostly subapical, black. Petals yellow, not tinged red, 6.4-7 x 1.7-2.5 mm, c. 0.9-1.5 x sepals, elliptic to oblong or spathulate, rounded, apiculus subterminal, obscure to obsolete; laminar glands few, pale or absent; marginal glands absent or few, black, near apex. Stamens irregularly 3-fascicled or not fascicled, c. 30, longest 3-5 mm, c. 0.5-0.7 x petals; anther gland black. Ovary 2.5-3 x 2 mm, ovoid-cylindric, obtuse; styles 3-4(5), 2-2.5 mm long, 0.8-0.9 x ovary; stigmas narrowly capitate; placentae axile. Capsule 5-6 x 3 mm, ovoid-cylindric, 1.25-1.35 x sepals, with valves longitudinally vittate. Seeds yellow-brown, 0.7-0.9 mm, not carinate; testa scalariform-reticulate.
Damp places in grassland; 300-1650 m.
Eastern Transvaal, Swaziland, Natal (Midlands), eastern Cape Province.
H. natalense is related to 4. H. bifurcatum, differing from it in being less woody with stems more branched basally and laterally, so that there are lateral branches bearing repeated pseudo-dichotomies from usually several lower stem nodes. In addition, the leaves are thinner and spreading and the leaf laminar glands are punctiform, not linear. Despite the wide geographical separation, however, there can be no doubt of the close relationship of these two species.
Keller's H. woodii type is from the same collection as that of Wood & Evans.