GUTTIFERAE. 



237 



Hypericum. St. John's Wort. 

 (Family Guttiferae). 



Small shrubs (or most species 

 herbaceous), with exfoliating 

 bark: deciduous. Twigs slender, 

 usually small, angled at least be- 

 low the nodes: pith small, green 

 or brown, spongy and finally ex- 

 cavated. Buds solitary, sessile, 

 minute, with 2 or several scarcely 

 specialized scales, often develop- 

 ing the first season and sometimes 

 forming short axillary branches 

 covered by scars. Leaf-scars op- 

 posite, small, triangularly lens- 

 shaped, little raised: bundle- 

 trace 1: stipule-scars lacking. 



Very little attention has been 

 paid to the winter-characters of 

 Hypericaceae. Lofling, in his 

 Gemmae Arborum, p. 198, de- 

 scribed the buds of Hypericum 

 Androsaemum ; H. calycinum is 

 pictured by Schneider, f. 119; and Meigen considers the win- 

 ter condition of H. elodes and H. perforatum in a paper on 

 the vegetative organs of various perennials. 



1. Twigs very evanescently angled. (1). H. prolificum. 

 Twigs rather persistently 4-angled. 2. 



2. Buds distinctly scaly. (2). H. calycinum. 

 Buds scarcely with specialized scales. 3. 



3. Openly bushy. (3). H. Kalmianum. 

 Round-topped. (4). H. aureum. 



