Veronica murrellii

Detailed description

Spreading or trailing gynodioecious subshrub with ascending to erect branchlets, to 200 mm tall. Old stems grey or brown; branchlets greenish to pale brown, with red band at nodes, bifariously pubescent; internodes 1–2× diameter. Leaf bud with narrow acuminate sinus . Leaves spreading, very shortly connate; lamina elliptic to obovate, subcoriaceous, yellowish green above and beneath, 3.5–9.0 × 2.0–5.0 mm, usually with sparse, very short, tapering eglandular hairs on midrib above and beneath and margins, rarely glabrous ; apex broadly rounded; base cuneately narrowed to short broad flat petiole; margin entire, yellowish, rounded. Inflorescences terminal, racemose, 10–30 mm long; flowers crowded, spiralled . Peduncle and rachis puberulent; peduncle very short . Bracts linear-lanceolate to narrow-elliptic, obtuse to acute , minutely ciliolate, slightly shorter than calyx lobes . Pedicels erecto-patent, 0.5–2.0 mm long. Flowers sweetly scented, female or hermaphrodite on separate plants. Calyx lobes 4, oblong to elliptic, obtuse to subacute, not overlapping, 2.5–3.0 × 1.0–1.5 mm; margin minutely glandular and eglandular ciliolate. Corolla white; tube 1.5–2.0 × 1.5–2.0 mm, funnelform, glabrous; lobes recurved, elliptic (female) to broadly elliptic (hermaphrodite), obtuse, 2.5–3.0 × 1.5–2.5 mm. Anthers purple, obtuse, fertile and c.2 mm long (hermaphrodite) or sterile and c.1 mm long (female); filaments white, long-exserted, 1(female)-3(hermaphrodite) mm long, erect or slightly spreading. Nectarial disk glabrous, fleshy, green. Style white, glabrous, 1–5 mm long, curving to anterior of flower, clavate below stigma; stigma subcapitate. Ovary ovoid, glabrous, c.1.0 × 0.7 mm. Capsule flattened, ovate, acute, dark brown, 3.5–4.0 × 3.0 mm, 1 mm thick, septicidal to base, loculicidal at apex only. Seeds pale orange-brown, elliptic, strongly piano-convex, smooth, 0.9–1.1 × 0.6–0.8 mm.