Hypericum scouleri

Scouler's st john's wort

Family: Hypericaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Scouler's st john's wort is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, high Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, San Francisco Bay Area, southern Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Modoc Plateau in wet meadows, streambanks, and mesic areas in chaparral and conifer forest at elevations below 2,940 meters. Flowering from June to September, this plant produces pale to bright yellow flowers with black-dotted petals 7 to 12 millimeters long, typically arranged in clusters of 3 to 25 per stem. Growing 20 to 70 centimeters tall with erect, slender stems emerging few from the base and featuring small sterile axillary branches, it has a taproot or rhizome system. Its leaves are 10 to 30 millimeters long, ovate to elliptic, with black-dotted margins and an almost clasping base, appearing flat with obscure undersurface dots. The fruit is a distinctive 6 to 7 millimeter, 3-lobed structure with tiny brown seeds less than 1 millimeter long.

Habitat: Wet meadows, streambanks, mesic areas in chaparral, conifer forest

Bloom period: Jun-Sep

Elevation: < 2940 m

Bioregions: NW, CaRH, SN, SnFrB, SCoRO, TR, PR, MP

California counties: Placer, Kern, San Bernardino, Mono, Tuolumne, Los Angeles, Modoc, Fresno, Plumas, Alpine, Amador, Contra Costa, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Tulare, Madera, Riverside, Shasta, Sierra, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Ventura, Butte, Calaveras, Del Norte, El Dorado, Siskiyou, Marin, Mariposa, Mendocino, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Nevada, San Diego, Santa Clara, Inyo, Napa

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.