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Clusiaceae family

Canary Island St. Johnswort Hypericum canariense

Canary Island St. Johnswort is an introduced perennial tree, found in Hawaii and the lower 48 states. It grows to 5 ft and blooms May – Jun.

More about this plant

Hypericum canariense is a species of flowering plant in the family Hypericaceae known by the common name Canary Islands St. John's wort. It is the sole member of Hypericum sect. Webbia. Wikipedia →

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Canary Island St. Johnswort is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Pringle Manzanita
Native
Pringle Manzanita
Arctostaphylos pringlei
●●○○○
Sweet Acacia
Native
Sweet Acacia
Vachellia farnesiana
●●●●○
Southern Cattail
Native
Southern Cattail
Typha domingensis
●●○○○
Sturdy Bulrush
Native
Sturdy Bulrush
Bolboschoenus robustus
●○○○○
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Hardiness
≥ zone 11 derived from its U.S. range
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
McKenzie et al. 2025 — community-science image analysis (MIT) — Flower colour
Height
5 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
Flower colour
Yellow AI AI image-analysis of community-science photos (~87% expert agreement) — not a botanical record
In the garden
Shrub layer — Sits in the shrub of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
AI = read by an AI vision model · DERIVED = a computed estimate, not a direct measurement. The “How we know this” section below details each.
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · May – Jun — 48 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~20 caterpillar species

Hypericum supports ~20 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a moderate genus.

Recorded feeding on Hypericum in North America, including:

Acleris aenigmana · leafroller moth Acleris maculidorsana · Stained-Back Leafroller Agonopterix hyperella · concealer moth Agonopterix lythrella · concealer moth Agonopterix nubiferella · concealer moth Aplocera plagiata · Treble-Bar
+ 8 more species →
Caloptilia hypericella · leaf-blotch miner moth Choristoneura parallela · Spotted Fireworm Moth Choristoneura rosaceana · Oblique-Banded Leafroller Coleotechnites nigritus · twirler moth Cryptocala acadiensis · Catocaline Dart Fomoria hypericella · pygmy leafminer moth Hemithea aestivaria · Common Emerald Hyppa xylinoides · Common Hyppa
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
✦ Bees 1 bee visitor

1 native & managed bee species is documented visiting Canary Island St. Johnswort :

Bombus melanopygus · Black Tail Bumble Bee
Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits
Flower colour Derived

McKenzie et al. assigned each species a flower colour with a GPT-4V vision model over iNaturalist photos. We use the confident tier plus a separately-labelled lower-confidence top-up (mostly inconspicuous green/brown flowers), and render it as a small tint — never as an asserted fact, and kept out of the written synopsis.

Honest limits: AI image inference (~87% expert agreement on the confident tier); a decorative, confidence-tiered indicator, not a measured trait.

McKenzie, P., Berardi, A.E., Hopkins, R. (2025). flower_color_phenology (MIT).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (18) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[12] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[15] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[16] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[17] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[18] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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