Veronica perbella

Detailed description

Erect shrub, up to 1 m tall in exposed sites, occasionally reaching 1.8 m in dense vegetation. Mature branchlets purple-grey, fading to grey on 2–3-year-old wood; branchlets fleshy, green, greenish-purple, sometimes spotted red, drying purple-black, flattened and ridged, minutely puberulent, hairs bifarious; leaf decurrencies prominent as a narrow medial ridge, this often tinged pink or red; internodes 2–10× diameter. Leaf bud strongly flattened, olive-green, midrib and lamina margin pink; sinus absent. Leaves (63–)87–110(–220) × (9–)10–14(–23) mm, patent to erecto patent, lamina lanceolate or oblanceolate, firmly fleshy, adaxial surface dark green, midrib orange green or pale green above, usually pink below, minutely eglandular/glandular hairy, adaxial lamina surface glossy, ± glabrous, except for sparse minute eglandular hairs at leaf base, abaxial surface dull pale green, apex cream, obtuse to subacute, base attenuate; margin entire, glabrous, often tinged pink. Inflorescences with 15–80 flowers, lateral, racemose, simple, occasionally double branched from basal bracts, rarely ternate, 60–100(–150) mm long, flowers usually crowded on rachis, sometimes widely spaced, spiraled. Peduncle and rachis with minute spreading eglandular hairs, usually reddish brown, fading to pinkish green at fruit maturation, sometimes yellow-green, peduncle 40–100 mm long. Basal bracts foliose, olive-green, usually falcate, lanceolate 7–19 mm long, upper bracts 3–4 mm long, violet-maroon, linear, acute, margins involute, minutely puberulent. Pedicels spreading 2–5 mm long, reddish brown, rarely pink. Flowers protandrous, hermaphrodite, faintly sweet-scented, usually single but occasionally peloric near raceme apex. Calyx 4–5-lobed, 2.6–3.3 mm long, violet fading to lilac, narrowly lanceolate to lanceolate, acuminate, overlapping at edges, outer surface with scattered minute sessile glands; margin ± alternating glandular-eglandular ciliolate. Corolla violet-red, violet, occasionally pink or dark carmine, maturing mauve, usually fading to off white following anthesis, tube 1.8–2.2 × 1.8–2.8 mm, narrow, usually included within calyx lobes, inner surface ± glabrous, lobes (4.8–)5.0–6.5 × (2.0–)2.5–3.0 mm, erect to suberect, becoming reflexed following anthesis, narrowly lanceolate, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, subauriculate and minutely ciliolate at base, acute. Stamen filaments 7–10 mm long, pink or violet-red fading to white with age, curving outwards after dehiscence, base minutely puberulent; anthers 2.0–2.8 mm long, blue to purple, acute, pollen cream. Nectarial disc glabrous, fleshy, dark green. Style 8–10 mm long, violet-red, glabrous, stigma capitate, pink. Ovary 1.0 × 0.6 mm, pale pink, cylindrical, sparsely to distinctly puberulent especially in lower third and along septal grooves; hairs eglandular. Peloric flowers scarce, confined to distil portion of racemes; in structure similar to single flowers but fused for length of calyx and corolla tube, otherwise with 8 corolla lobes, 2 stamens, 2 fused pistils, and 2 fused ovaries. Capsule latiseptate, 7–8 × 5–6 mm, amber to amber-brown, rhombic to ovate, sharply acute, sparsely to distinctly hairy, septicidal to base, loculicidal for 1/3–½ length. Seeds 1.8 × 2.0 mm, amber, ovate, slightly papillate with a narrow marginal wing.