Friday’s seed and plant portrait – Hypericum kalmianum
Having too many seeds makes it hard to choose which one to show/write about.
I am going the easy way with the last species uploaded to the shop – the Kalm’s St. John’s wort, a (sub)shrub native of the Great Lakes region in Canada and US.
Hypericum kalmianum seeds – Kalm’s St. John’s wort (Fam. Hypericaceae)
Cultivated to some extent, this Hypericum has narrow bluish-green leaves and cheerful, large golden flowers with extruded stamens in late summer; the capsules mature very late.
It is a showy, adaptable plant; evergreen (or partly) and as one can guess after its wild habitat, with excellent cold hardiness. Another attractive feature is the brown/reddish bark which peels off.
Lots of qualities!
The specific epithet honors Pehr Kalm, one of Linnaeus’ disciples ; an explorer, botanist and naturalist, he traveled to and lived for a while in North America in mid-17th , discovering and writing about plants, animals, insects, Niagara Falls, and in general about the life of American colonies at the time.
Another species that can be found with H. kalmianum, bearing the same name is Lobelia kalmii shown in the gallery.
Days are short now so you can start to read more about Pehr in the wiki stub and then follow other links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pehr_Kalm
I’ve only recently realized how many varieties of Hypericum there are. There’s one in my garden and I have no idea what it is.
There are quite a few species and cultivars of Hypericum on the market. With good pictures of leaves/flowers/whole plant it’s not impossible to ID them,
unless the case of a hybrid.
Incredible stamen, a real show off! I love the phrase “specific epithet” just trips off the tongue.
Yeah, the botanists found a good term for referring to the name of a species – surprise! :))