Ascyrum hypericoides L.

• Title

  Ascyrum hypericoides L.

• Author(s)

  Nathaniel Lord Britton, Frances W. Horne

• Scientific Name

  Ascyrum hypericoides L.

• Description

  Flora Borinqueña Ascyrum hypericoides Arayanilla Saint Andrew's Cross Family Hypericaceae Saint John's-wort Family Ascyrum hypericoides Linnaeus, Species Plantarum 788. 1752. Ascyrum Crux-Andreae Linnaeus, Species Plantarum, edition 2,1107.1763. Not many native plants of tropical regions grow also in the temperate zones, within the areas subject to frost, which provides a period of cessation of growth during the winter, often called a resting-period; the yellow-flowered shrub here illustrated is an interesting example of adaptation to various climates, ranging north to Massachusetts, Illinois and Nebraska. Its West Indian distribution is in Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo and Porto Rico; on the continent it ranges south from Texas to southern Mexico, in Porto Rico this shrub grows in sandy soil at lower and middle elevations, locally plentiful on white sands of the northern coastal plain, ranging upward in the mountains to about 500 meters elevation; it is the only species of the genus existing here. Ascyrum (Greek, not rough) is a Linnaean genus of 8 known species of smooth, low shrubs, inhabiting eastern continental North America, Bermuda, the Greater Antilles, Mexico and Central America. Their small, untoothed, opposite leaves are black-dotted, their bright yellow flowers solitary, or in small clusters. The 4 sepals are in 2 pairs, the outer ones broader than the inner; there are 4, oblique petals, spreading, somewhat like the arms of a short cross, early falling away, and there are many stamens, in some of the species united in clusters; the ovary is 1-celled, and there are from 2 to 4 styles. The fruit is a capsule, which, splits into 2, 3, or 4 valves when mature. Ascyrum hypericoides (like Hypericum, a related genus) is a much-branched shrub, 0.3 to 0.8 meter high, with slender, rather densely leafy branches. The thin, stalkless, blunt, or somewhat pointed leaves are 1 to 3 centimeters long, oblong, or obovate, with 2 small glands at the base. The flowers are borne at the ends of twigs, or also in leaf-axils, on short stalks; the outer pair of sepals are from 6 to 12 millimeters long; the narrowly oblong petals are about as long as the outer sepals, the capsule more or less shorter.