Annual or perennial herbs, shrubs or small trees; branchlets terete or 2 -
4-angled,
glabrous. Leaves simple, sessile or shortly petioled, opposite-decussate, rarely whorled,
entire or gland-fringed, lamina with transparent glands containing essential oils and
sometimes black or red glands containing hypercin or pseudohypercin. Flowers yellow,
homostylus, solitary or in terminal monochasial to dichasial cymes or panicles. Sepals
5, quincunical or rarely 4, decussate, coriaceous to chartaceous, glandular-puntate like
leaves, caducous or persistent. Stamens 1 - 60, free or variously united, epipetalous,
caducous or persistent; filaments slender, free or connate; anthers yellow or reddish,
dorsifixed, connective often with black or amber gland. Ovary 1 - 5-locular, with parietal,
axile or pseudo-central placentation; styles 3 - 5, free or connnate, slender, often
recurved at apex; ovules many, rarely few on each placenta. Capsules septicidal or
dehiscing along placenta when unilocular or indehiscent. Seeds 1 -
numerous, curved,
cylindric or ellipsoid, sometimes winged or carinate with testa prominently to obscurely
striated.
Cosmopolitan, rare in Australia; ca 400 species; 25 in India.
Literature.
ROBSON, N.K.B. & P. ADAMS (1968). Chromosome numbers in Hypericum and
related genera. Brittonia 25: 95 - 106. ROBSON, N.K.B. (1972). Notes on Malesian species of Hypericum
(Guttifereae). Blumea 20: 251 - 274. ROBSON, N.K.B.
(1973) Guttiferae In: NASIR, E. & S.I.ALI, Fl.
W. Pakistan)32: 1 - 12.
ROBSON, N.K.B. l974). Hypericaceae. In: STEENIS, C.G.G.J. VAN, Fl. Males.
1, 8: 1 - 29. ROBSON, N.K.B.(1977). Notes on some Nepalese and Indian Hypericum. J. Jap. Bot. 52:
276 - 288. ROBSON, N.K.B. (1977). Studies in the genus Hypericum L. (Guttiferae) I. Infrageneric
classification. Bull. Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.) Bot. 5: 293 - 35.
