遍地金 bian di jin

Hypericum bodinieri H. Léveillé & Vaniot; H. delavayi R. Keller.

Herbs, perennial or annual, (0.08-)0.13-0.45 m tall, erect to decumbent or procumbent from creeping and rooting base; stems single or few, clustered, branched above or rarely throughout; branches short, spreading-ascending. Stems shallowly 2-lined or terete, eglandular. Leaves sessile to short petiolate (especially lower ones); blade broadly elliptic to obovate or ovate, (0.6-)1-3 × (0.3-)0.5-1.5(-1.9) cm, thinly papery, abaxially paler, not glaucous; laminar glands pale or rarely a few black, dots to streaks, dense, varying in size; intramarginal glands black, dense or irregular; main lateral veins 2- or 3-paired, tertiary reticulation scarcely visible abaxially, dense; base rounded to cordate, margin entire or (upper) sometimes basally or completely reddish- to black-glandular-ciliate and with reddish- to black-glandular-ciliate auricles, apex rounded [or rarely acute to apiculate-obtuse]. Inflorescence 3- to ca. 50-flowered, from 1 or 2(or 3) nodes, the whole laxly flat-topped or broadly pyramidal to capitate-cylindric or bifurcate; bracts and bracteoles ovate or lanceolate to linear, with black-glandular-ciliate margin and auricles. Flowers 5-8(-11) mm in diam., stellate; buds ellipsoid, apex subacute. Sepals basally united, erect, equal, narrowly to broadly oblong or elliptic, 2.5-5(-6) × 1.5-3 mm, glandular-ciliate to -laciniate [or very rarely entire]; laminar glands all pale or some black, linear to punctiform, scattered; marginal glands reddish to black, the cilia sometimes alternating with intramarginal black gland dots, or very rarely all intramarginal; apex acute to obtuse; veins 3(-5). Petals bright yellow, elliptic-oblong, 3-5 × 1.2-1.6 mm, 1-1.2 × as long as sepals; laminar glands absent; marginal glands black, few, distal and subapical, sessile; margin entire or apically glandular-ciliate. Stamens 7-11, apparently 3-fascicled, longest 2.5-4 mm, 0.8-0.9 × as long as petals. Ovary ovoid to globose; styles 3, 1.5-2.5 mm, 0.9-1 × as long as ovary, divaricate. Capsule broadly ovoid to subglobose, 3-4.5(-6) × 3-4 mm, ca. as long as sepals or slightly longer. Seeds brown, ca. 0.5 mm; testa finely scalariform. Fl. Apr-Jul, fr. Jul-Sep.

Grassy slopes, open woodlands, streamsides, roadsides and rice paddy terraces; 700-3300 m. Guangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India (NE and Tamil Nadu), N Laos, N Myanmar, Sri Lanka, N Thailand].

Hypericum wightianum is clearly closely related to H. daliense and has apparently spread from SE China westward to NE India and southwest to W Myanmar and Mizoram, NE India. It then reappears in the S Indian hills and in Sri Lanka. The variation is continuous.