Vol. 45 TORREYA June 1945 



A Leafy Form of Hypericum gentianoides 



H. K. Svenson 



One of the most abundant plants in sterile rocky or sandy places from 

 Maine to Texas, is the little branched annual known as "orange grass" or 

 "pine weed." The leaves are reduced to minute scales usually only 1 mm. long, 

 though occasionally on elongate shoots they may reach 2 or 3 mm. It was, 

 accordingly, a great surprise to find among the hundreds of plants which grew 

 on the sandy borders of the Merrick Reservoir (Nassau County, Long Island) 

 a single plant with well-developed leafy shoots, illustrated in the accompany- 

 ing photograph. The flowering stalks of the little plant are only 5 cm. high, 

 about the same size as the leafy shoots which radiated out on the sand to form 

 a rosette. The lanceolate spiny-tipped leaves are mostly 4-5 mm. long, appressed 

 to the stem, and considerably broader than in Hypericum Drummondii of the 

 Mississippi Valley, which is sometimes united with Hypericum gentianoides to 

 form the genus Sarothra. This was an old genus established by Linnaeus, with 

 the help of his student Chenon, when the affinities of the plant were obscure 

 and Hypericum gentianoides was supposed to be a member of the gentian 

 family. It does resemble Bartonia, and by Plukenet and other early writers it 

 had been considered as a kind of "Centaurium," a name later taken up by Per- 

 soon for Bartonia. Clayton noted that the plant was called "ground pine" in 

 Virginia, but that name is now commonly applied to species of Lycopodium. 

 Mr. Weatherby had the kindness to look at the specimen which is illustrated 

 here and he also pronounced it to be Hypericum gentianoides. I have known 

 the "orange grass" since I was a small child, but have never seen any other 

 specimen of a leafy plant. The specimen (Svenson no. 11,658, Sept. 15, 1941) 

 is at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. 



Brooklyn Botanic Garden 

 Brooklyn, New York 



36 



