HYPERICAOEjE. 



235 



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



Ours herbs or slightly suffrutescent plants. Leaves opposite, entin-, 

 without stipules and with pellueid dots or dark glands. Flowers 

 perfeet, regular and hypogynous. Sepals 4 or 6, herbaceous, persist- 

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

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

 more or less completely 3 to 5-celled. 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 1-celled. 



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



1. H. mutilum. 



Procumbent, forming mats with ascending or erect branches; stamen 8 15 



to 20 2. H. anagalloidcs. 



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

 3-celled; stamens very numerous. 

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



Scoultri of 3. H. formosum. 



Suffrutescent; stems branching from the base 4. H. continuum. 



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 G to 12; sepals linear to lanceolate, mostly 

 shorter than the capsule; capsule ovate, \h lines long. 



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

 Aug. -Sept. 



2. H. anagalloides C. & S. Falsi-: 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 G 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 Mountains; Lake Co.; Sierra Nevada. Julv- 

 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 bush}- plant about 1 ft. high; leaves thickish, 



