Scrub St John’s Wort

Description

Botanical Name:  Hypericum tenuifolium, synonym Hypericum reductum

Common Name:  Scrub St John’s Wort, Atlantic St. John’s-wort, St John’s Wort, Beach St John’s Wort, Sandhill St John’s Wort

Description:  ——-  NOTE: This is NOT the edible/medicinal, non-native St John’s Wort, Hypericum perforatum. That plant is considered a noxious, invasive weed in several states, so it will not be sold on Bella’s website. However, there are plenty of cool herbal shops around that you can buy the dried St John’s Wort from for your tinctures, potions, or whatnot. ——-

This plant is a cute little Florida native shrub that grows only 1-2′ tall and wide. It can grow as either a naturally small rounded shrub or as a low mat. Has short, needle-like leaves, and red stems. Blooms pretty yellow flowers spring to fall. It likes a moist well-drained site in sun, part sun, or part shade although it tolerates most soil types, including dry soil. It blooms best in sun or part sun. It can be used as a ground cover or in groupings near water features. Even though it likes moist soil, It needs good drainage. Semi-evergreen to evergreen.

Host plant to Gray Hairstreak butterflies, whose caterpillars feed on its seed capsules. Foliage and seeds are food source for birds and mammals. Attracts numerous pollinators, especially bees.  Documented bees include Colletes sp. A, Hylaeus conflzcens, Augochlorella aurata, A. gratiosa, Azcgochloropsis anonyma, A. metallica, A. sumnptuosa, Dialictus miniatulus, D. nymnphalis, D. placidensis, D. tegularis, Arzthidielluln perplexzcm, Megachile brevis pseudobreuis, M. georgica and Apis lnellifera.

Natural habitat is sandhill, pine flatwoods, dry edges of sandhill lakes. Likes to grow in clay, loam, or sandy soils.

Not salt tolerant of inundation by salty or brackish water. Some tolerance to salty wind but not direct salt spray.

This plant in 1-gallon containers is 8-12″ tall and wide.

Plant Lore:  Scrub St. John’s Wort is one of more than 400 species of perennial, flowering shrubs in the St. John’s wort family, Hypericaceae. Thirty-one species of St. John’s Wort are found in Florida. All are native, and several are on state and federal endangered plant lists.

Florida Hardiness Zones 8 – 10