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Loosestrife Hypericum
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Loosestrife Hypericum
ative Photo: Krishan Lal
Common name: Loosestrife Hypericum, Loosestrife St Johns Wort
Botanical name: Hypericum dyeri    Family: Hypericaceae (Hypercum family)
Synonyms: Hypericum lysimachioides

Loosestrife Hypericum is named for Robert Allen Dyer, 20th century South African botanist and taxonomist. It is a shrub 0.6-1.2 m tall, spreading. Stems are arching, branches 2-4-lined and flattened at first, soon 2-lined to terete. Leaves are carried on 1-2 mm long stalks. They are 1-6 cm long, 0.5-3.5 cm broad, ovate to lanceshaped or elliptic-lanceshaped, tip pointed or apiculate to rounded, base wedge-shaped to to rounded, venation laxly or scarcely reticulate. Flowers are reminscent of Loosestrife borne in 1- to many-flowered flat-topped clusters. Flowers are 1.5-3.5 cm across, yellow. Sepals are 4-12 mm long, linear to narrowly oblong-lanceolate, 1-1.8 cm long, 1.2 x longer than the stamens. Stamens c. 20 in each fascicle. Ovary 3.5-5 mm long; styles 1.5-2 x longer than the ovary, free, gradually divergent, spreading at apex. Capsule 7-10 mm long, subglobose, without vittae or vescicles. Seeds 0.9-1 mm long, apiculate, carinate; testa laxly reticulate. Loosestrife Hypericum is found in Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Nepal and Pakistan, at altitudes of 1500-2400 m. Flowering: August-September.

Identification credit: Krishan Lal Photographed in Sirmaur Distt, Himachal Pradesh.

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