Veronica macrantha var. macrantha

Features

Spreading low shrub to 0.3 (-0.5) m tall. Branches erect or spreading or decumbent, old stems mottled grey; branchlets green or red-brown or brown, glabrous or puberulent (usually only on very youngest branchlets), hairs uniform or bifarious; internodes 1-14 mm; leaf decurrencies obscure to swollen. Leaf bud indistinct and tightly surrounded by recently diverged leaves. Leaves narrowly elliptic or oblanceolate, or spathulate or sub-circular, coriaceous, slightly concave or flat, 5.5-30.2 x 2.5-13.5 mm, ratio of lamina length/width 1.2-3.3 (-3.8), distance from leaf base (including petiole) to widest point (5.1-) 10-20 (-23.2) mm,; apex subacute or obtuse; midrib not thickened, or depressed to grooved above and thickened below, sometimes evident in fresh leaves; margin glabrous or sparsely ciliolate, sometimes tinged red, deeply toothed, number of teeth on one side of leaf (2-) 3-7 (-11); upper surface green (sometimes tinged red near base), dull, with many stomata, glabrous or hairy along midrib; lower surface green, hairy along midrib (usually) or glabrous; petiole 0.5-5.4 mm. Inflorescences with 2-7 flowers, lateral, unbranched, 0.8-5.7 cm, with all flowers (including those near the apex) generally developing to maturity (but inflorescence usually terminated by a pair of empty bracts); peduncle (6-) 7-30.7 mm long; rachis 0.2-2.7 cm. Lowermost bracts on inflorescences (4-) 5-9.1 mm long, lowermost pair opposite, then subopposite or alternate above, narrowly deltoid or linear, obtuse (with a more or less squarish tip, often with a sunken apical gland). Flowers hermaphrodite. Pedicels shorter than bracts, (0.5-) 1-6 (-14.7) mm. Calyx 4.7-10.2 mm; lobes ovate or lanceolate, acuminate (with a more or less squarish tip, often with a sunken apical gland), glabrous outside (but hairy inside). Corolla tube glabrous, 4.5-5.3 x 2.5-4.5 mm (longer on anterior side), funnelform, shorter than calyx; lobes white at anthesis, ovate (often broadly), obtuse, patent to recurved, longer than corolla tube; corolla throat white or yellow. Stamen filaments thick and white, diverging slightly with age or remaining erect (and usually slightly incurved at the apex), 8-9.5 mm (varying from very shortly fused to the base of the corolla tube, to fused to the corolla lube for up to 2/3 its length); anthers creamy white or yellow, 2.6-3.5 mm. Ovary 1.6-2.5 mm; ovules 15-28 per locule, scattered on a hemispherical placenta; style 5.5-9.3 mm. Capsules angustiseptate, acute, 6.5-12.4 mm long, 4.5-6.5 mm thick, loculicidal split extending ¼-all way to base. Seeds flattened (sometimes strongly), discoid, winged, pale brown, 1.5-2.7 x 1.2-2.2 mm, micropylar rim 0.6-1 mm.