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Key to Hypericum, Key B: shrubby St. John's-worts with 4 petals and 4 (rarely 2) sepals [section Myriandra, subsection Ascyrum]

Hypericaceae

Hypericum

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1 Styles and carpels 3 (rarely 4); leaves (5-) 7-20 mm wide, rounded, subcordate, or cordate-clasping at the base; plant an erect shrub.
  2 Leaves cordate-clasping at the base; [of e. GA southward]
  2 Leaves rounded or subcordate at the base; [collectively widespread in our area].
    3 Large outer sepals broadly rounded to obtuse at the apex; shrub solitary, 3-10 dm tall; bark of older stems reddish-brown, exfoliating in strips; [widespread in our area]
    3 Large outer sepals acute and apiculate at the apex; shrub rhizomatous-colonial, to 15 dm tall; bark of older stems gray to black, tight and smooth; [FL peninsula only]
1 Styles and carpels 2 (3 in H. microsepalum); leaves 1-7 mm wide, mostly cuneate (or if rounded the leaves < 8 mm long and 3 mm wide); erect or decumbent shrub.
      4 Sepals nearly equal in size; styles 3; [s. GA south to n. FL]
      4 Sepals markedly unequal, one opposite pair large and enclosing the capsule; styles 2; [collectively widespread].
        5 Pedicels 6-13 mm long, soon reflexed; subtending bractlets located near the last pair of leaves; decumbent shrub, to 2 dm tall
        5 Pedicels 1-5 mm long, erect; subtending bractlets located midway between the base of the flower and the last pair of leaves; erect or decumbent shrub, mostly 1-15 dm tall.
          6 Erect shrub, usually with a single stem, freely branched well above ground level (or from ground level if injured, as by fire, but then the multiple branches still erect rather than decumbent), to 1 m or more tall; leaves usually variable in size and shape, widest near the middle
          6 Decumbent, matted shrub, with several prostrate stems arising from a primary rootstock near ground level, each with numerous erect branchlets, rarely over 3 dm tall; leaves usually relatively uniform in size and shape, widest above the middle