Hypericum afrum (Nomenclature)
Perennial herb (l-)2 m tall, erect, suffrutescent at base, branched all up stem, with branches short, strict to ascending, glabrous. Stems vinous red, narrowly 2-lined but otherwise terete, not ancipitous, internodes exceeding leaves; cortex exfoliating in sheets. Leaves sessile; lamina 10-15(-20) x 3-5(-11) mm, narrowly oblong to elliptic-oblong or lower often obovate to oblanceolate, paler beneath, papyraceous, thinly glaucous, plane, spreading to deflexed; apex rounded, margin recurved and undulate, base cuneate to cordate-amplexicaul; venation: 3(4) pairs of main laterals ascending from lower 0.25-0.5 of midrib, midrib branched above, tertiary reticulation obscure; laminar glands pale, dense, unequal, relatively small, not prominent; intramarginal glands black, dense. Inflorescence c. 60-flowered from 3-4 nodes with branches from up to 2 nodes below, the whole globose and rather congested to broadly pyramidal and rather lax, sometimes with additional flowering branches from further down stem; pedicels 3-4 mm; bracteoles reduced, linear-lanceolate, sparsely black-glandular-ciliate. Flowers 12-15 mm in diam.; buds ovoid-ellipsoid, rounded. Sepals 3-3.5 x 0.7-1 mm, subequal, slightly basally connate, narrowly ovate-oblong to linear-lanceolate, acute, glandular-denticulate to -ciliate; veins 5, not branching or 3, branching; laminar glands pale, shortly linear to striiform or rarely punctiform; marginal glands black, small, rather sparse. Petals golden? yellow, tinged red dorsally, 7-8 x 3-3.5 mm, c. 2.3 x sepals, narrowly elliptic to oblong-elliptic, rounded, with apiculus amber- or black-glandular; laminar glands pale, linear to distally punctiform; inframarginal glands black, sparse, on inner margin only. Stamens c. 35-40, longest c. 5.5-6.5 mm, c. 0.8 x petals; anther gland black. Ovary c. 2 x 1 mm, narrowly ovoid-pyramidal; styles c. 3 mm, 1.5 x ovary, erect-outcurved. Capsule 5-6 x 3-4 mm, ovoid-pyramidal to ovoid, exceeding sepals, usually enclosed by petals twisted together. Seeds straw-coloured, c. 0.7 mm long; testa finely linear-foveolate.
Marshes, streamsides and damp moors; c. 300-700 m.
NW Tunisia (Mogods, Kroumirie), Algeria (Constantine, E. Algiers).
H. afrum is quite different from other Mediterranean species of Hypericum. It has been associated with H. elegans Stephan ex Willd. (sect. Hypericum) by Stefanoff (1933a, 1934) and with H. undulatum Schousboe ex Willd. in the same section by me (Robson, 1977a); but it does not fit well into sect. Hypericum. On the other hand, all the characters discordant in that section fit in sect. Adenosepalum (e.g. the old petals twisting together over the developing capsule, and the pale linear-foveolate seeds); and H, afrum can easily be interpreted as the third species in a northward cline: H. conjungens-H. kiboense-H. afrum. It must therefore be a relict species of considerable antiquity.