HYPERICUM PERFOLIATUM

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

Common Names:- Perfoliate St.John's wort

Homotypic Synonyms:- None

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

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

Perfoliatum (L) The stem appearing to pass through the leaf blade.

General description:- Perennial herb with a few ascending to erect flowering

stems

Stems:-

1) (15-)25-75 cm, with 2 raised lines, erect or decumbent at the base.

Leaves:-

1) 13-60 mm. bluish-green, opposite, sessile, triangular-ovate to lanceolate,

glabrous, usually with numerous translucent glands and a few intramarginal

black glands.

2) Upper, margins. scarious and minutely blackglandular-ciliate.

Flowers:-

1) Inflorescence, usually 10-30-flowered, rather dense. yellow.

2) Sepals, lanceolate, with superficial black dots and streaks and short, minutely

black-gland-tipped fimbriae.

3) Petals, 8-14 mm, golden yellow, sometimes with black dots or streaks towards

the apex.

Fruit:-

1) Capsule, ovoid-pyramidal, with dorsal vittae and lateral vesicles.

Key features:-

1) Capsule, ovoid, with dorsal vittae and lateral vesicles.

2) Sepals, erect in fruit.

2) Leaves, with numerous translucent glands.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Scrubland vegetation, olive groves, in open woodland and gorges. 0-1200

Distribution:- Widespread in the Mediterranean region, extending eastward to

Cypus. Fairly widespread across Crete.

Flowering time:- Late Apr to June.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton