滇藏遍地金 dian zang bian di jin

Herbs, perennial, 0.03-0.25(-0.4) m tall or long, erect or ascending from creeping and rooting base; stems solitary, slender, growing through other vegetation, unbranched or with short branches from upper or occasionally several nodes. Stems 2-4-lined, eglandular. Leaves with petiole 0.5-1 mm; blade triangular-ovate or elliptic to oblong-oblanceolate, 0.3-2 cm × 1.5-10 mm, subpapery, abaxially paler, not glaucous; laminar gland dots pale, very small, dense to sparse; intramarginal glands all black or black and pale or reddish, rather dense to spaced, sometimes very small; main lateral veins (2 or)3-paired, tertiary reticulation dense; base rounded to rarely cuneate, margin entire, apex rounded. Inflorescence 1-9-flowered from 1 or 2 nodes, nearly flat-topped or broadly pyramidal to cylindric or bifurcate, sometimes with flowering branches from up to 4 nodes below; bracts and bracteoles narrowly oblong and black- or red-glandular-ciliate and -auriculate or reduced leaflike and entire and without auricles. Flowers (0.6-)0.9-1.1(-1.5) cm in diam., stellate; buds cylindric-ellipsoid, apex subacute. Sepals free, erect, subequal to unequal, narrowly oblong or narrowly elliptic to lanceolate, 1.5-5 × 0.5-1.5 mm; laminar glands all pale or partly black, lines; marginal glands black or reddish, sometimes few; margin glandular-ciliate to entire, apex obtuse to acute; veins 5. Petals golden yellow, oblong-oblanceolate, 4-7 × 1-2.5 mm, (1.3-)1.5 × as long as sepals; marginal glands black or reddish, solitary, apical, and sometimes a few black, subapical, sessile; laminar glands absent or rarely 1 or 2 black streaks; margin entire or subentire. Stamens ca. 20, apparently 3-fascicled, longest 4-5 mm, 0.6-1 × as long as petals. Ovary ellipsoid to subglobose; styles 3, 2-2.5 mm, 1-1.4 × as long as ovary, divergent. Capsule cylindric-ellipsoid to ellipsoid-subglobose, 4.5-6 × 2.5-3.5 mm, ca. 2 × as long as sepals. Seeds straw-colored, ca. 0.4 mm; testa foveolate-scalariform. Fl. Jul, fr. Jul-Aug.

Grassy swamps, streambanks and bogs; 2800-3400(-3600) m. SE Xizang, NW Yunnan (Weixi) [Bhutan (Bumthang)].

Hypericum ludlowii shows a reduction trend westward from Yunnan to Bhutan. The easternmost populations are rather similar to the "intermediate" population of H. trigonum in SE Xizang and N Myanmar, but differ in the smaller overall size and delicate habit and in the size of the leaves and floral parts, as well as in the absence, in the more reduced forms, of black glands (except in the anthers). The upper leaves in this easternmost population, however, appear trigonous as in typical H. trigonum. It differs from H. himalaicum in the relatively longer styles and narrower, apically acute sepals that are not black-streaked; and it is usually distinct in the smaller flowers, shorter ascending stems, and boggy habitat. The styles are not absolutely shorter, but the smaller ovary makes them relatively so.