Hypericum uralum (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Hypericum uralum Buch.-Ham. ex D. Don

Protologue: Bot. Mag.: t. 2375 (1823).

Synonyms

• Norysca urala (Buch.-Ham. ex D. Don) K. Koch (1853),
• Hypericum patulum Thunb. var. uralum (Buch.-Ham. ex D. Don) Koehne (1893).

Distribution

Nepal, northern India, Burma (Myanmar), China, Thailand and northern Sumatra.

Uses

No reports have been found of medicinal use in South-East Asia, but in Nepal the root juice is used against fever.

Observations

• A shrub, 120-180 cm tall, branches arching, sometimes frondose.
• Leaves lanceolate to ovate, 1-4.5 cm × 0.5-2.5 cm, lower side very glaucous, with 3 main lateral veins and pale glands, subsessile or petiolate.
• Inflorescence corymbose, racemiform, 1-3(-10)-flowered.
• Flowers 1.5-3 cm in diameter, sepals 3.5-9 mm × (1-)2-6.5 mm, free, glands pale, petals 9-18 mm × 5-12 mm, caducous, bright yellow to golden yellow, glands pale, stamens in 5 fascicles, each with 40-60 stamens, caducous, ovary 5-celled, placentas 5, axile, styles 5, free, stigmas narrowly capitate.
• Fruit subglobose to globose, 7-11 mm long.
• Seeds minute, cylindrical-ellipsoid, not curved, slightly carinate, shallowly linear-reticulate.

The Sumatran form tends to be more luxuriant and to have larger flowers than plants from elsewhere. H. uralum is found in grassy or rocky slopes, in pastures, thickets, open woodland and montane forest at 1700-3300 m altitude.

Selected sources

• [1238] Robson, N.K.B., 1974. Hypericum. In: van Steenis, C.G.G.J. (General editor): Flora Malesiana. Series 1, Vol. 8. Sijthoff & Noordhoff International Publishers, Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands. pp. 14-29.
• [1239] Robson, N.K.B., 1977. Studies in the genus Hypericum L. (Guttiferae) I. Infrageneric classification. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Botany 5(6): 291-355.
• [1240] Robson, N.K.B., 1980. Hypericum L. In: Townsend, C.C. & Guest, E.R. (Editors): Flora of Iraq. Vol. 4. Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform, Bagdad, Iraq. pp. 363-381.
• [1241] Robson, N.K.B., 1981. Studies in the genus Hypericum L. (Guttiferae). I. Characters of the genus. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Botany 8(2): 55-226.
• [1442] Taylor, R.S.L., Manandhar, N.P., Hudson, J.B. & Towers, G.H.N., 1996. Antiviral activities of Nepalese medicinal plants. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 52(3): 157-163.

Main genus page

• Hypericum (Medicinal plants)

Authors

• M. Brink