Veronica cryptomorpha

Features

Shrub or rounded shrub, to 1.2 m tall. Branches erect; old stems light to very dark brown, or red-brown (chocolate); youngest branchlets brown (usually), or green; internodes 1-10 mm long; stem pubescence bifarious, eglandular. Leaf bud about as long as mature leaves; sinus broad and acute. Leaves decussate, erecto-patent to patent; lamina oblanceolate, lanceolate or elliptic, fleshy or slightly thin, 7–33 × 3–9 mm; apex acute or subacute; base cuneate; evident venation in fresh leaves consisting of midrib only; midrib thickened beneath and depressed to grooved above; margin not thickened, rounded (or squarish), minutely papillate, mostly entire; upper surface green, dull or slightly glossy, hairy along midrib; lower surface light green or glaucous or glaucescent, dull, with many stomata. Petiole 1–6 mm long, hairy above (along midrib). Inflorescences with 5–17 flowers, lateral, racemose and mostly unbranched, 12–37 mm long, = to > subtending leaves; peduncle 2–1.3 mm long, pubescent; rachis 8–31 mm long; bracts almost always opposite and decussate, free (usually) or connate (sometimes very shortly, especially near base of inflorescence), acute, subacute or obtuse, ciliolate, lanceolate or ovate or deltoid; pedicels < or corolla tube, glabrous; ovate to elliptic, obtuse, patent to recurved, with margin and apex flat; corolla throat white. Stamen filaments white 3.5–5.5 mm long; anthers obtuse or shortly apiculate, dark pink or purplish mauve, 1.9–2.4 mm long. Nectarial disc glabrous. Ovary ovoid, glabrous or sparsely eglandular hairy, 1.5–2.1 mm long; style 3.00–6.50 × c.0.15–0.25 mm thick, glabrous or with sparse multicellular hairs (especially toward base), white; stigma subcapitate, white, yellow or green at anthesis, 0.25–0.35 mm wide. Capsules latiseptate, obtuse or subacute, pale to dark brown, 3.0–4.0 × 2.4–2.8 mm wide, glabrous or with sparse eglandular, multicellular hairs, loculicidal split extending ¼–½ way to base.