Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

Plant Identification => Plant Identification Questions and Answers => Topic started by: mark smyth on October 25, 2010, 05:12:04 PM

Title: Hypericum for ID
Post by: mark smyth on October 25, 2010, 05:12:04 PM
Does anyone know this Hypericum? It was growing in one of my troughs but died. A seedling appeared in the garden this year.
Title: Re: Hypericum for ID
Post by: Carlo on October 25, 2010, 05:27:21 PM
Nice form in the third photo! I'll be interested to see what people think as far as I.D.
Title: Re: Hypericum for ID
Post by: Lesley Cox on October 25, 2010, 08:48:26 PM
I don't know it, but jolly nice Mark. I hope you can replace it.
Title: Re: Hypericum for ID
Post by: mark smyth on October 25, 2010, 11:06:47 PM
Carlo, the third photo should be the same as the one in the crevice trough

Lesley, the third shows the seedling which is still alive

I'll look for seeds tomorrow
Title: Re: Hypericum for ID
Post by: Lvandelft on October 26, 2010, 11:39:10 AM
Mark, it looks like a hairy plant, so it could be H. tomentosum from the S. Europe.
Title: Re: Hypericum for ID
Post by: TheOnionMan on October 26, 2010, 03:06:42 PM
Mark, it looks like a hairy plant, so it could be H. tomentosum from the S. Europe.

Initially I thought it might be H. tomentosum, but then the habit in flower doesn't match what I grow under that name, although I admit that I have never tried to verify that what I'm growing is true tomentosum.  I find Hypericum to be another difficult genus to key, as there are species throughout the globe, and no good single reference (that I know of) on the genus. 

My "H. tomentosum" starts out with basal shoots, rather fuzzy and whitish-green, but these grow upright to 1-2' (30-60 cm) and have very small flowers, Mark's plant looks like a much nicer rock garden worthy Hypericum. 

Reginald Farrer in The English Rock Garden writes about H. tomentosum: "a woody plant with many flopping stalks clothed in oval foliage that in its turn is clothed with fluffy down or wool. It is not a common speciesm being found here and there in the warmer parts of South and Central Spain; with two varieties, H. t. dissitiflorum and H. t. intermedium."

H. tomentosum might be described compartively against a related new species here, but this is a "pay for publictaion" link.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1756-1051.2009.00736.x/full

And found a few photo links of tomentosum, again, I can't vouch for species ID authenticity, but the following two look similar to what I grow.  The flowers are rather small.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58237382@N00/3637741591/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/58237382@N00/3637741329/in/photostream/
...more:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marialuisa/4693716121/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/salvador_tello/4380773663/

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