Veronica decumbens

Detailed description

Openly branched. spreading low shrub to 0.35 m tall. Branches decumbent to erect; branchlets purplish-red to almost black, pubescent, hairs bifarious (usually) or uniform; internodes 1.5-16.5 mm; leaf decurrencies obscure to evident. Leaf bud distinct; sinus absent. Leaves erecto-patent; lamina elliptic (often broadly) or obovate or oblanceolate, concave, 6.5-23.5 x 2-13 mm; apex subacute or acute; midrib not thickened or depressed to grooved above and thickened below, only sometimes faintly evident in fresh leaves; margin ciliate (with very short, stiff hairs) or glabrous (only very rarely, with hairs usually present at least near apices of youngest leaves), almost always tinged red; upper surface dark green, glossy, with many stomata, glabrous. Inflorescences with 2-25 flowers, lateral, unbranched, 0.6-3 cm, longer than (usually) to shorter than (rarely) subtending leaves; peduncle 0.15-1.6 cm; rachis 0.4-2.4 cm. Bracts alternate (although lower-most bracts may be in a more or less opposite pair, or whorl of three), deltoid (sometimes narrowly) or ovate, acute (usually) to obtuse. glabrous outside. Flowers hermaphrodite. Pedicels 0.2-1.7 mm, hairy or sometimes glabrous. Calyx 1-3 mm. 4-5-lobed (5th lobe small, posterior); lobes deltoid or ovate, acute or acuminate or obtuse, with mixed glandular and eglandular cilia (glandular cilia sometimes greatly outnumbering eglandular cilia). Corolla tube glabrous, 3-6 x 1.8-2 mm, cylindric and contracted at base, much longer than calyx; lobes white at anthesis, elliptic (sometimes broadly) or ovate, obtuse (usually) to acute (posterior sometimes slightly emarginate), suberect to patent, shorter than corolla tube. Stamen filaments at least slightly incurved at apex in bud, 4.2-7 mm; anthers magenta, 1.6-2 mm. Ovary 0.9-1.1 mm; ovules 17-20 per locule; style 6-10 mm. Capsules subacute, 2.5-5.5 x 2-3.5 mm, loculicidal split extending ¼-½-way to base. Seeds flattened, ovoid to ellipsoid to oblong, more or less finely papillate, brown, (1-)1.2-1.7 x0.8-1.3 mm, micropylar rim 0.3-0.7 mm.