Marsh St Johns Wort - Hypericum elodes

Scientific Name: Hypericum elodes (Clusiaceae).

English Name: Marsh St Johns Wort (St Johns Wort Family).

French Name: Millepertuis des marais (='marsh thousand vein').

5 Key Characters:

• not a very typical looking St Johns Wort.
• grey woolly hair.
• creeping plant which roots along the stems at leaf nodes where they touch the ground.
• almost circular oval or heart shaped leaves.
• yellow flowers which don't open flat and the sepals have red dots on the edge.

Lookalikes: Beginners might confuse with some of the yellow flowering Loosestrifes Lysimachia spp. Check a good field guide to see the differences if you are not familiar with these plants.

Habitat: Bog pools, hollows, swamps and wet heaths. Needs a combination of full sun and still acidic water. Often grows on sedge root mounds. Tolerates a certain amount of trampling. Favours the 'tails' of étangs, ephemeral, fragile environments.

Flowering Period: June-July-August-September.

Status: Rare everywhere, and especially in the Touraine Loire Valley and Brenne, where the species is on the eastern limits of its range. Can be a conspicuous species of ephemeral pools here.

Further Reading and References:
The Wild Flower Key by Francis Rose.

Photographed by Loire Valley Nature:
All photos will enlarge in a new window if you click on them. Row 1 left in the drawdown zone of the Etang de Ribaloche in the Foret de Preuilly, June.