Veronica barkeri

Detailed description

Tree up to 13 m tall producing a dense, rounded to conical, canopy when mature. Branches erect, old stems brown, branchlets green, red-brown or purple, pubescent, hairs uniform; internodes 3–30 mm. Leaf bud pubescent (rarely glabrous) sinus absent. Leaves erecto-patent to patent; lamina 24–90 × 4–30 mm, linear-lanceolate or lanceolate, subcoriaceous, flat to weakly concave, apex acute; margin narrowly cartilaginous, minutely pubescent (hairs eglandular), upper surface yellow-green to light green, midrib distinctly hairy, hairs glandular or rarely eglandular, lower surface paler than upper, conspicuously (or faintly) pitted, each pit containing a single twin-headed glandular hair, midrib hairy, sometimes the rest of the underside also uniformly eglandular pubescent or glabrous. Inflorescence racemose, lateral and unbranched, 20–50-flowered, 28–80 mm long, mostly equal to subtending leaves rarely shorter or longer; peduncle 6–15 mm; rachis 22–68 mm. Bracts alternate, deltoid, oblong, obtuse to acute. Flowers hermaphrodite or gynodioecious. Pedicels 1.0–6.0 mm long, always longer than bracts. Calyx 1.5–4.2 mm long; lobes deltoid, lanceolate to broadly lanceolate, acute to obtuse, externally hairy. Corolla tube 1.4–2.0 × 1.6–1.9 mm, broadly funnelform, shorter than calyx; lobes longer than corolla tube, white tinged with pale blue or mauve, or distally or completely dark blue or pink at anthesis, white or pale blue with age, elliptic, lanceolate, rhomboid or ovate, obtuse, cucullate, suberect to recurved. Stamen filaments 4–5 mm long, white, mauve or blue, straight or incurved at apex in bud; anthers 1.5–2.0 mm long, purple. Ovary 1.1–1.3 mm long, ovoid, hairy; style 2.5–4.5 mm long, hairy. Capsules 4.0–5.0 × 2.8–3.3 mm, hairy, loculicidal split extending ⅓–¾-way to base. Seeds 1.1–2.0 × 1.0–1.4 mm, strongly flattened, ellipsoid-oblong to broadly ellipsoid, winged, pale to dark brown.