[ 37° 1
H Y P E R I C U M <
/ b y
quadrangulum.
Square St. John's Wort.
P O L Y A D E L P H I A Polyandria.
G en. C har. Cal. 5-cleft. Petals 5. Filaments numerous,
united at the bafe into 3 or 5 fets. Caff.
roundith.
Spec. C har. Styles three. Stem four-edged, herbaceous.
Leaves fprinkled with pellucid dots.
Calyx-leaves lanceolate.
Sy n . Hypericum quadrangulum. Linn. Sfl. PI. 1104.
H uff. FI. Am 334. F e ll. Cant. 289. Curt.
Lond.fafc. 4. t. 5a.
H. quadrangularc. Linn. Syfi. Feg. ed. 14. 701*
With. Pot. Arr. 813. Sibth. Ox. 235.
H. Afcyron didtum caule quadrangulo. Raii Syn.
344* _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
CoMMON in moift hedges, meadows, and banks of rivers,
flowering in July and Auguft.
Root woody, perennial, creeping. Stems feveral, perfedlly
ereft, two feet high, leafy, very acutely quadrangular throughout,
by which, and the fmallnefs of the flowers, this fpecies
is readily diftinguifhed from H.perforatum,t. 295. Leaves op-
pofite, each pair crofiing thofe next to them, elliptical or ovate,
rather paler beneath, eopioufly dotted, bluntith, entire, but
fometimes a little crifped in the margin, ribbed. The ftem terminates
in a panicled manner, with oppofite many-flowered
branches. Calyx-leaves lanceolate, narrow. Petals oblique,
pale-yellow. We have notobferved them fo frequently dotted
and ftreaked with dark purple as in the H. perforatum, though
they fometimes are fo. Anthers with a dark purple gland.
Linnaeus appears by his herbarium to have confounded with
this plant our H. dubium, t. 296, which we did not obferve till
now. That fpecies however, though fubjedt to be occafionally
dotted in its leaves in a flight degree, flill remains diftinft from
this and the common perforatum by its elliptical calyx-leaves,
which never vary. We cannot here refrain from doing juftice to
the phyfiological judgment of our worthy friend Mr. Correa,
who, when the dubium was firft difeovered, cautioned us againft
founding an abfolute fpecific character upon the want of thefe
pellucid dots