Veronica pubescens subsp. pubescens

Detailed description

Shrub to 2 m tall. Branches erect or spreading; old stems brown to red-brown; youngest branchlets green to red; internodes 1–39 mm long; stem uniformly pubescent, hairs eglandular, varying from short to very long and woolly. Leaf bud about as long as mature leaves with leaves of a pair separating when mature; leaf bud sinus usually present (but absent in some populations or plants) small, rounded, square or oblong, usually hairy. Leaves lanceolate, oblong, elliptic or linear, subcoriaceous to coriaceous, upper surface dark to yellowish green, dull to somewhat glossy; underside paler, usually covered with long eglandular hairs, very rarely glabrous; ± flat, 15.0–87.0 × 3.5–18.0 mm; apex subacute or acute; base truncate or cuneate; midrib thickened beneath, hairy, with many hairs usually > 0.2 mm long; depressed to grooved above; margin pubescent, entire. Petiole 0.5–4.0 mm long, hairy. Inflorescences with 20–190 flowers, lateral, racemose and unbranched, 20–200 mm long, longer than or about equal to subtending leaves; peduncle 3–28 mm long, eglandular pubescent; rachis 17–175 mm long, eglandular-pubescent; bracts alternate, acute or subacute, ciliate, narrowly deltoid or lanceolate; pedicels much longer than, equal to or shorter than bracts, eglandular-pubescent, erecto-patent or slightly recurved at anthesis, erecto-patent, ascending or recurved at fruiting. Calyx 1.7–4.0 mm long, 4-lobed, equally divided; lobes all similar, deltoid or lanceolate, acute, acuminate or subacute, with mixed glandular and eglandular cilia, margins sometimes tinged pink. Corolla lobes mauve at anthesis (at least faintly) and white after pollination, outer surface eglandular hairy, corolla tube always white; tube hairy inside and often hairy outside, 1.9–3.9 × 1.3–1.9 mm, narrowly funnelform to shortly cylindric and contracted at base, equaling or longer than calyx; usually hairy inside and sometimes hairy outside; lobe lanceolate or elliptic, subacute or obtuse, suberect to patent. Stamen filaments white, 4.5–6 mm long; anthers subacute to conspicuously apiculate, mauve or purple, 1.1–1.5 mm long. Nectarial disc glabrous. Ovary ovoid, 0.9–1.1 mm long, surface mostly eglandular hairy; style 3.5–10.5 mm long, white or mauve; stigma no wider than style, yellow, green, mauve or red at anthesis. Capsules obtuse or subacute, dark brown, 2.5–5.0 × 2.0–3.4 mm, septicidal split extending to base, loculicidal split extending ¼– ½ way to base.