Veronica chathamica

Detailed description

Spreading low shrub often form mats up to 1 m across and 0.25 m tall. Branches prostrate, decumbent or pendent, rooting freely from nodes, old stems brown or grey; branchlets green or red-brown, pubescent; internodes 1.9-25.5 mm. Leaf bud distinct; sinus mostly absent, if present, small and rounded. Leaves erecto-patent to recurved; lamina elliptic, obovate or oblanceolate, coriaceous, flat, 8.5-33.0 × 3.3-16.5 mm; apex subacute to obtuse; margin narrowly cartilaginous, usually glabrous, sometimes pubescent, often red-tinged; upper surface green to dark green, dull, glabrous, occasionally minutely hairy along midrib, lower surface light green, glabrous, rarely hairy along midrib. Inflorescences with 20-40 flowers, lateral, unbranched, 13-41 mm; peduncle 5-20 mm, rachis 2-18 mm. Bracts alternate often with lowermost pair opposite, then subopposite or alternate above, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, acute, margins glabrous, occasionally hairy, usually hairy outside. Flowers hermaphrodite. Pedicels 1.0-2.6 mm. Calyx 2.5-4.0 mm; lobes linear-lanceolate or deltoid, acute, ciliate, usually hairy outside. Corolla tube hairy inside and occasionally outside, 2.5-4.0 × 2.0-2.3 mm, cylindric, usually = or > calyx (rarely < calyx); lobes white, tinged purplish mauve, completely dark purple-mauve, elliptic or ovate, obtuse, patent, shorter than corolla tube, hairy inside, sometimes scarcely, and then only on the base of the inner surface. Stamen filaments 4.0-4.5 mm long; anthers pale brown or pale mauve, 2.0-2.4 mm. Nectarial disc ciliate or glabrous. Ovary sometimes hairy, 1.2-1.5 mm; style 5-6 mm, glabrous or sometimes hairy. Capsules subacute, 3.5-5.0 × 2.5-3.5 mm, glabrous or occasionally minutely hairy, loculicidal split extending to ¼ way to base. Seeds flattened, broad ellipsoid to sub-discoid, brown, 1.2-1.6 × 0.9-1.3 mm.