Trailing St John's-wort
Hypericum humifusum
Family: Hypericaceae
Fire effect on plant
Fire will likely kill tailing St John’s-worth given its shallow budbank and short life-span.
Key traits
This is a annual, biennial or short-lived perennial non-clonal herb. It has a belowground storage organ (pleiocorm) and a small shallow budbank (average depth of the belowground bud bank: 2cm).
Its soil-stored seedbank is described as ‘persistent’ (Olano et al, 2002). Seed are dispersed by animals, achieving large dispersal distances (400-1500m; Lososová et al, 2023).
Plant response to fire
In a Spanish heathland that was subjected to a wildfire, trailing St John’s-wort showed no ability to resprout but instead relied on recruitment from the soil stored seedbank after the fire (Valbuena & Trabaud, 2001).
Timing of life history
Annual, Biennial or short-lived, Perennial. Seeds likely produced from first or second growing seasons. Flowering June to September.
Conservation status
None.
References
Olano, J. M., Caballero, I., Laskurain, N. A., Loidi, J., Escudero, A. (2002). Seed bank spatial pattern in a temperate secondary forest. Journal of Vegetation Science 13: 775-784 [Empirical evidence; Academic literature]
Lososová Z., Axmanová I., Chytrý M., Midolo G., Abdulhak S., Karger D.N., Renaud J., Van Es J., Vittoz P. & Thuiller W. (2023). Seed dispersal distance classes and dispersal modes for the European flora. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 32(9), 1485–1494 [Empirical evidence; Academic literature]
Valbuena, L., Trabaud, L. (2001). Contribution of the soil seed bank to post-fire recovery of a heathland. Plant Ecology 152: 175-183 [Empirical evidence; Academic literature]