HYPERICUM AMBLYCALYX

Family and Genus:- See- GUTTIFERAE/Sect. CORIDIUM

Common Names:- None

Homotypic Synonyms:- Hypericum quadrifolium

Meaning:- Hypericum (Gr) Above-pictures. A name used by the Greek physician

and botanist Dioscorides for its use over shrines to repel evil spirits.

Amblycalyx (Gr) With a blunt calyx.

General description:- Perennial, many-branched.

Stems:-

1) Up to 50 cm, erect and caespitose with strict branching, or procumbent,

straggling and rooting.

Leaves:-

1) Simple, opposite 2-12 mm, linear to lanceolate in whorls of 4, glabrous.

Flowers:-

1) Yellow in elongated panicles or simple cymes, or solitary.

2) Sepals, sessile, with entire, eglandular margins.

3) Petals, and stamens deciduous.

Fruit:-

1) Capsule, with oblique vesicles.

Key features:-

1) Plant without red or black glands on the leaves.

2) Leaves in whorls of 3-4, smooth.

3) Petals and stamens deciduous.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Crevices and ledges of limestone cliffs, rocky road embankments with

open dry shrubby vegetation, outcrops in open coniferous woodland. 0-1100 m.

Distribution:- Endemic E. Crete. Where it is fairly common.

Flowering time:- Mid-Mar to early June.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton

Status:-

Conservation status (for threatened species): Rare (R) according to IUCN 1997.

Protection status (for threatened species): Greek Presidential Decree 67/1981.