Hypericum walteri J.F. Gmel.

Greater Marsh St. John's Wort; Walter's Marsh St. John's Wort

Herb

Perennial

Vascular

Greater Marsh St. John's Wort is a native herbaceous perennial in the St John’s Wort family (Hypericaceae). It can be found throughout Alabama. Greater Marsh St. John's Wort grows in swamps, in marshes, along streams and rivers, and around ponds and lakes. It is a perennial with an elongated rhizome. Stems are erect and 1-3 feet in height. The stems are branched above the middle. Leaves are petiolate, opposite, elliptic to oblong in outline, with entire margins, and with glandular dots on the lower leaf surface. Flowers are produced in axillary cymes or solitary from the upper leaf axils. The flowers have 5 sepals and 5 pink to salmon petals. The fruit is a cylindrical capsule. This species is sometimes placed in the genus Triadenum, and may appear as Triadenum walteri (J. F. Gmelin) Gleason in some field guides or floras. Triadenum was separated from Hypericum based on the pinkish color of the flowers, having 9 stamens in 3 fascicles, having filaments fused for ½-1/5 of their length, and with a large gland at the base of each fascicle. Hypericum had yellow to orange flowers, 10-300 stamens in a continuous ring or in 4-5 fascicles, the filaments separate or fused only at their base, and lacking a large gland at the base of the stamens. Molecular studies however indicate that Triadenum is part of Hypericum and should not be treated as distinct at the genus level.--A. Diamond

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Native OBL (NWPL)

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