UYPERICACEiE. 235 



44. HYPERICACE/E. St. John's Woet Family. 



Ours herbs or slightly suffrutescent plants. Leaves opposite, entire, 

 without stipules and with pellucid dots or dark glands. Flowers 

 perfect, regular and hypogynous. Sepals 4 or 5, herbaceous, persis1> 

 ent. Petals 4 or 5, (in ours) yellow. Stamens usually numerous, 

 distinct or more or less united into 3 to 5 clusters. Ovary 1-eelled, or 

 more or less completely 3 to 5-oelled. Fruit a septicidal capsule. 

 Seed without endosperm. 



1. HYPERICUM L. St. John's Wort. 

 Leaves sessile. Flowers cymose. Sepals 5, equal. Petals 5, 

 deciduous or marcescent. Styles in ours 3. Capsule conical to 

 globose or oblong. (Ancient Greek name.) 



Annuals; sepals longer than the petals; styles short; capsule l-celled. 



Erect from the base, more or less branching; stamens 6 to 12 



1. H, mutilwni. 

 Procumhent, forming mats with ascending or erect branches ; stamens 15 



to 20 2. jr. anagalloides. 



Perennials; petals much longer than the sepals; styles long; capsule 

 3-celled; stamens very numerous. 

 Herbaceous; stems from rootstocks, simple or branched above: var. 



Scouleri of 3. H. formosum. 



Suffrutescent; stems branching from the base. . . . i. H. concinnum. 



1. H. mutilum L. Stem mostly simple below and branching 

 above, 10 to 17 in. high; leaves ovate, 5 to 10 lines long, 3 to 6 lines 

 broad, 5-nerved at base, sessile; flowers in leafy cymes at the ends of 

 the branches; stamens 6 to 12; sepals linear to lanceolate, mostly 

 shorter than the capsule; capsule ovate, 1^ lines long. 



Shores of the Sacramento at New Town Landing near Rio Vista. 

 Aug. -Sept. 



2. H. anagalloides C. & S. False Pimpernel. Commonly 

 forming dense mats 6 to 15 in. broad, with ascending or erect 

 branches 2 to 5 in. high; leaves lanceolate to ovate or orbicular, 

 obtuse, 5 to 7-nerved at base, 2 to 6 lines long and almost as broad; 

 flowers in a leafy paniculate cyme, scarcely 2 lines long; sepals ovate 

 or linear-oblong, unequal, longer than the capsules; stamens 15 to 20. 



Common about springy places and along streamlets in the moun- 

 tains: Santa Cruz ilountains; Lake Co.; Sierra Nevada. July- 

 Aug. 



3. H. formosum HBK. var. Scouleri Coulter. Stems from 

 running rootstocks, slender, simple or branching at summit, 2 to 3 ft. 

 high; leaves ovate or oblong, obtuse, conspicuously black-dotted 

 along the margins, sessile by a more or less clasping base, 1 in. long 

 or less; flowers in more or less panicled cymes; sepals and petals 

 black-dotted similarly to the leaves; sepals 2 lines long or less; petals 

 6 lines long; stamens numerous, in 3 clusters. 



Howell Mountain and northward in the Coast Ranges at the highest 

 altitudes, but rare; more common in the Sierra Nevada. 



4. H. concinnum Benth. Stems wiry, numerous from the woody 

 crown, forming a bushy plant about 1 ft. high; leaves thickish, 



