I.D help please

[stevecurtis]

which st.johns wort please


is this an hawkweed please


all the best steve

[Hedera]

Maybe Perforate St.John's wort - there are some black spots on leaves and they are in opposite pairs.
One of the many hawkweeds!

[Dorts]

Steve.
1. Perforate St. John's Wort - Hypericum perforatum. Two raised lines on stem, pointed sepals.
2.Perrenial/Corn Sow-thistle. Sonchus arvensis.

Dorts.

[stevecurtis]

Thanks for the help ,dorts i asume that some perforated st johns has no perforations.

all the best steve

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by stevecurtis

Thanks for the help ,dorts i asume that some perforated st johns has no perforations.
all the best steve

Steve. Let me explain the reason for my ID.
From what I can see, the stem is not square. That rules out Imperforate and Square-stalked (though Square Stalked is badly named as the stem is round with four raised lines, giving the appearence of it being square.).

The stem of your plant does not appear hairy, so not Hairy SJW.

Your plant appears to have two raised lines on the stem and pointed sepals ruling 'in' Perforate SJW.
(In Imperforate SJW. the sepals are blunt.)

It can only be one of the four mentioned.

Perforate SJW. is a very variable species and I have found plants with very few perforations but never none. You do often need a hand lens to find them and I would be very suprised if on closer inspection, there weren't some there.

Hybrids between Perforate and Imperforate are not infrequent and may be found without either parent being nearby. To consider a hybrid it would be necessary to have the plant at hand.
Dorts.

[stevecurtis]

Thanks Dorts for all your help again,i have just sorted a hand lens or eye peice from old Bins to be honest.Good bit of kit to carry from now on .

all the best steve

[stevecurtis]

Dorts your spot on as usual ive been back to the plant with a eye piece and there are clear perforations.

All the best Steve

[AlanS]

I looked very carefully at the Hypericum photograph when it was first posted, as, in some areas (including my own Wigtownshire vice-county), the hybrid with H. maculatum is much more common than pure H. perforatum. However, I agree with Dorts that this seems to be the pure plant.

If "perforatum" seems to lack "perforations" (actually transparent glands in the leaf, no holes!) then this is often an indication of the hybrid, but other characters must be checked. However, as Steve has confirmed that the leaves are "perforate", no worries.

Hypericum perforatum actually is apomictic (strictly, agamospermous) (like brambles, hawkweeds & others) and I imagine the hybrid is too. This means that we get local, precisely reproducing populations, maintaining different variants and hence causing some of the identification difficulties. Nobody has split H. perforatum into numerous species (as with brambles, hawkweeds ...) yet, but I know an extremely capable botanist who, for good or bad, is working on it!
(I have been keeping quiet about the apomixis, but as this is now published in the latest volume of a very good Scandinavian flora, I no longer have to respect any confidence.)

Alan

[Dorts]

Interesting info as usual Alan.
I think if I were a taxonomist I would be both 'Splitter' & Lumper'. What else, time permitting, would there be to do? Having 'lumped' everything together I would find it extremely difficult to just sit on my hands. Sooner or later I would have to take a fresh look, and so the 'splitting' would begin. And this of course is what happens in every branch of science.

Apomixis, in plants, (meaning reproduction by asexual means or without fertilization) is a facinating study in itself. Whether apomixis in plants gives a particular species an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage is a question I, and many far more capable than me, have often pondered, but obviously such a study would be well beyond our lifetimes!
Dorts.