Veronica macrocarpa var. macrocarpa
Common names
hebe
Biostatus
Native – Endemic taxon
Current conservation status
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2022-2023 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website. This report includes replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Previous assessments can be found here.
- Conservation status of vascular plants in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2023. 2024. Peter J. de Lange, Jane Gosden, Shannel P. Courtney, Alexander J. Fergus, John W. Barkla, Sarah M. Beadel, Paul D. Champion, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Troy Makan and Pascale Michel Department of Conservation. Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2023 | Not Threatened
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
Simplified description
Bushy shrub bearing pairs of narrow leaves and spikes of small white or pinkish flowers inhabiting the wider Auckland area. Leaves to 163mm long, m-shaped in cross section. Leaf bud without gap at base. Flowers closely spaced, with longish threads (anthers), in spikes around equal leaf length.
Flower colours
Violet/Purple, White
Detailed description
Bushy shrub to 3 m tall. Branches erect, old stems brown or grey; branchlets green, pubescent or glabrous, hairs bifarious or uniform; internodes (2-) 5-41 mm; leaf decurrencies obscure or weakly evident (with a faint ridge along medial line). Leaf bud distinct; sinus absent. Leaves erecto-patent to recurved; lamina lanceolate or linear or oblong or oblanceolate or elliptic (often narrowly), coriaceous, m-shaped in transverse section, (23-) 45-110 (-163) x (5-) 9-22 (-32) mm; apex acute to obtuse or apiculate or sometimes acuminate; base cuneate or truncate; brochidodromous secondary veins sometimes evident in fresh leaves; margin narrowly cartilaginous, ciliolate or glabrous; upper surface green or dark green, usually glossy, without evident or rarely with few stomata, hairy along midrib (usually) or glabrous; lower surface light green. Juvenile leaves crenate, ciliolate (and with scattered hairs above midrib). Inflorescences with (13-) 25-85 flowers, lateral, unbranched, 3-13.2 cm, shorter to longer than subtending leaves; peduncle 0.6-1.9 (-3.6) cm; rachis (2-) 3-11.3 cm. Bracts alternate (apart from lowermost pair in most cases), lanceolate or deltoid (sometimes narrowly) or oblong, obtuse to acute or acuminate. Flowers hermaphrodite. Pedicels 1.5-5.5 mm, sometimes recurved in fruit. Calyx (2-) 2.5-3.7 (-4.2) mm; lobes lanceolate or elliptic or ovate or deltoid, acute to obtuse, very rarely hairy outside. Corolla lube hairy inside, (2.2-) 3.2-5.5 x 2.8-4.2 mm, funnel form and contracted at base, at least slightly longer than calyx; lobes white or tinged with pink or mauve at anthesis, white with age, ovate or elliptic, obtuse, erect to patent (usually only posterior lobe patent), shorter to longer than corolla tube, sometimes ciliolate or hairy inside; corolla throat white or violet. Stamen filaments white, 5.5-12.2 mm; anthers mauve or pink or violet or yellow, 2.3-3 mm. Ovary very rarely hairy, 1-1.6 mm; ovules approximately 8-10 per locule; style 5-11.5 mm. Capsules acute or subacute, 3.8-10 x 3-6.5 mm, loculicidal split extending ¼-½-way to base. Seeds flattened (sometimes strongly), broad ellipsoid to discoid, winged, more or less smooth, brown (sometimes pale), 1-2.5 (-3.2) x 0.9-1.7 mm, micropylar rim 0.2-0.6 mm.
Similar taxa
Distinguished from most large-leaved “Occlusae” (see Bayly & Kellow 2006) by its: leathery leaves; large, broad flowers, with corolla tubes longer than calyces, and long filaments; and large fruit.
Generally, V. var. macrocarpa is distinguished from V. var. latisepala by having white flowers, compared to the mauve or violet flowers of the latter (see further notes below).
V. macrocarpa is possibly closely related to, and may grade into V. corriganii (see notes under that species). It probably hybridises with V. stricta var. stricta at a range of sites, and the name Hebe xaffinis probably applies to this hybrid combination.
Distribution
North Island, from near Whangarei to near Kawhia, including islands of Hauraki Gulf and the Mercury Islands.
Habitat
It occurs in coastal to upland areas, in scrub, at forest margins or in open areas in forest, and on rocky sites
Detailed taxonomy
Genus
Family
Synonyms
Panoxis macrocarpa (Vahl) Raf., Hebe macrocarpa (Vahl) Cockayne et Allan var. macrocarpa
Taxonomic notes
Moore (in Allan 1961) recognised three varieties of V. macrocarpa. One of these is treated by Bayly & Kellow (2006) as a distinct species, V. punicea. The other two, var. macrocarpa and var. latisepala, are probably worthy of recognition (and are treated by some authors, e.g. Druce 1980, 1993, as distinct species). It has not, however, been possible to delimit these varieties to an extent that they could each be mapped and described separately by Bayly & Kellow (2006), var. macrocarpa, as traditionally defined, has while flowers, 2n=80 chromosomes and occurs on the North Island mainland, including the Coromandel Peninsula. var. latisepala, as traditionally defined, has violet flowers, 2n=120 chromosomes and occurs on Great Barrier and Little Barrier islands, and possibly near Whangarei Harbour and on Coromandel Peninsula. The two varieties are difficult to discriminate, particularly using herbarium specimens because: they are variable in leaf shape and size; specimens do not always have flowers (and colour may not always be retained); and the true limits of the chromosome races are unknown. Their discrimination is further confused because the geographic and morphological boundaries are not as clear-cut as outlined by Moore (in Allan 1961). For example, white-flowered plants occur on Great Barrier Island (M. Bayly personal observation), some of which have 2n=80 chromosomes (de Lange & Murray 2002); plants with 2n=120 occur on Coromandel Peninsula (de Lange & Murray 2002) and the Hunua Ranges (Hair 1967), the former at least with white flowers; both white-flowered and violet-flowered plants with 2n=120 are sympatric with white-flowered plants with 2n = 80 on Bream Head; violet-flowered plants with 2n=120 are sympatric with white-flowered plants with 2n = 80 on Mount Manaia (P. J. de Lange pers. comm. 2005). The limits of the two varieties are worthy of further investigation.
Included in Bayly & Kellow (2006) under V. macrocarpa are narrow-leaved plants from Great Barrier Island considered by Druce (1980, as H. “sp. (w)”; 1993, as H. “Great Barrier”) to constitute an undescribed species, and by de Lange & Murray (2002) possibly to be hybrids between V. macrocarpa and V. pubescens subsp. rehuarum. There are no clear grounds for either treating them as a distinct species or as hybrids.
Endemic taxon
Yes
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Ecology
Flowering
April-November (-January)
Fruiting
January-December (-January)
Life cycle and dispersal
Seeds are wind dispersed (Thorsen et al., 2009).
Other information
Etymology
veronica: Named after Saint Veronica, who gave Jesus her veil to wipe his brow as he carried the cross through Jerusalem, perhaps because the common name of this plant is ‘speedwell’. The name Veronica is often believed to derive from the Latin vera ‘truth’ and iconica ‘image’, but it is actually derived from the Macedonian name Berenice which means ‘bearer of victory’.
macrocarpa: Large fruit
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
VERMVC
Chromosome number
2n = 80
Previous conservation statuses
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2022-2023 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS) – more information about this can be found on the NZTCS website. This report includes replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Previous assessments can be found here.
- Conservation status of vascular plants in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2023. 2024. Peter J. de Lange, Jane Gosden, Shannel P. Courtney, Alexander J. Fergus, John W. Barkla, Sarah M. Beadel, Paul D. Champion, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Troy Makan and Pascale Michel Department of Conservation. Source: NZTCS and licensed by DOC for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.
2017 | Not Threatened
2012 | Not Threatened
2009 | Not Threatened
2004 | Not Threatened
Regional conservation statuses
Auckland: 2025 | Regionally Not Threatened
The regional threat classification system leverages off the national assessments in the NZTCS, providing information relevant for the regional context. Auckland conservation status information is sourced from the “Conservation status of vascular plant species in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland” Simpkins E et al. (2025) report.
Referencing and citations
References and further reading
Allan, H. H. 1961. Flora of New Zealand. Vol. 1. Wellington: Government Printer.
Bayly, M.J., Kellow, A.V. 2006. An illustrated guide to New Zealand Hebes. Wellington, N.Z.: Te Papa press pg. 202-204.
de Lange, P. J. and Murray, B. G. 2002. Contributions to a chromosome atlas of the New Zealand Flora - 37. Miscellaneous families. New Zealand Journal of Botany 40: 1-23.
Druce, A. P. 1980. Trees, shrubs, and Lianes of New Zealand (including wild hybrids). Unpublished checklist held at Landcare Research, Lincoln, New Zealand. (Copy also held in the library of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.)
Druce, A. P. 1993. Indigenous vascular plants of New Zealand. 9th revision. Unpublished checklist held at Landcare Research, Lincoln, New Zealand. Copy also held in the library of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington.
Hair, J.B. 1967. Contributions to a chromosome atlas of the New Zealand flora - 10 Hebe (Scrophulariaceae). New Zealand Journal of Botany5: 322-52.
Thorsen, M. J.; Dickinson, K. J. M.; Seddon, P. J. 2009. Seed dispersal systems in the New Zealand flora. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 11: 285-309
Attribution
Description adapted by M. Ward from Bayly & Kellow (2006).