Veronica calcicola

Detailed description

Shrub, to c.1.4 m tall. Branches erect; old stems mottled grey, or brown; youngest branchlets brown, or red-brown, or green; internodes 1.5-15 mm long; stem pubescence bifarious or uniform. Leaf bud without sinus. Leaves erecto-patent to patent or recurved; lamina oblong-elliptic (mostly) or lanceolate 3.5-9 mm wide; apex subacute or obtuse; base cuneate; midrib thickened beneath and depressed to grooved above; margin not thickened, oblanceolate, 13-45 mm long, 3.5-9.0 mm wide; apex subacute or obtuse; base cuneate; midrib thickened beneath and depressed to grooved above; margin not thickened, light green or yellowish green, bevelled, glabrous or ciliolate (especially toward apex), entire; upper surface dark green, glossy; lower surface green, dull, glabrous or sometimes minutely covered with glandular hairs). Inflorescences with 25-45 flowers, lateral, racemose and unbranched, 25-85 mm long, longer than subtending leaves, flowers usually opening in acropetal sequence, usually with all flowers developing to maturity; peduncle 4-20 mm long, pubescent with mixed long eglandular/short glandular hairs; rachis 22-56 mm long, pubescent with mixed eglandular/glandular hairs; bracts alternate, obtuse to acute, ciliate with both glandular and eglandular hairs, deltoid or ovate; pedicels varying from longer than bracts to shorter than pubescent mixed eglandular/glandular hairs, erecto-patent at anthesis, erecto-patent or patent at fruiting, 0.5-.0 mm long. Flowers hermaphrodite. Calyx terete, c.1.5-2.5 mm long, mostly 4-lobed; lobes oblong or lanceolate, obtuse or more rarely subacute, with mixed glandular/eglandular cilia. Corolla white; tube hairy inside, c.0.7-1.2 mm long, shortly funnelform, shorter than calyx; lobes longer than corolla tube, papillate inside sometimes basally hairy (or hairs more widespread) on inner surface, margins of corolla lobes glabrous; posterior lobe broadly elliptic or ovate or obovate, obtuse, erect to slightly recurved, with margin and apex turned upwards; lateral lobes elliptic, obtuse, suberect or patent, with margin and apex turned upwards; anterior lobe elliptic, oblong-elliptic, obtuse, suberect, patent or recurved, with margin and apex turned upwards, not enfolding style; corolla throat white. Stamen filaments white, 3-5 mm long; anthers obtuse, magenta, 1-2 mm long. Ovary ovoid, mostly eglandular hairy, c.0.8-1.1 mm long, 2-locular; style 3.5-5.0 mm long, glabrous, white; stigma yellow. Capsules 2.0-3.5 × 2.5-3.0 mm thick, septicidal split extending to base, loculicidal split extending 1/3-¾-way to base.