Veronica pubescens subsp. sejuncta

Detailed description

Shrub to 2 m tall, usually heavily branched. Branches erect or spreading; old stems brown to red-brown; youngest branchlets green to red; internodes 1–39 mm long; stems uniformly and minutely puberulent, or glabrous. Leaf bud about as long as mature leaves; sinus rounded to subacute, usually conspicuous, but sometimes (on Mokohinau Islands) very small or absent. Leaves obovate or oblanceolate, subcoriaceous to very robust and coriaceous, more or less flat, 30–125 × 7–31 mm; apex subacute, acute or obtuse; base truncate or cuneate; midrib thickened beneath, glabrous or hairy (hairs < 0.2 mm long) and depressed to grooved above; margin pubescent to sparsely ciliate or nearly glabrous, entire; upper lamina surface dark to very dark green, glossy, glabrous; lower surface green or light green, dull. Petiole 0.5–4.0 mm long. Inflorescences with 20–190 flowers, lateral, racemose and unbranched, 55–145 mm long; peduncle 3–28 mm long, eglandular pubescent; rachis 17–175 mm long, eglandular-pubescent; bracts alternate, narrowly deltoid or lanceolate, acute or subacute; pedicels ›, = to or ‹ bracts, eglandular-pubescent, erecto-patent, patent or slightly recurved at anthesis, erecto-patent, ascending or recurved at fruiting. Flowers hermaphrodite or female. Calyx 1.7–4.0 mm long, 4-lobed, equally divided; lobes deltoid or lanceolate, acute, acuminate or subacute, glabrous or hairy (always glabrous on Mokohinau Islands), if hairy then hairs mixed glandular/eglandular ciliate outside, occasionally inside, margins sometimes tinged pink. Corolla lobes faint mauve to vivid purple-mauve when young, usually fading to white after anthesis, lanceolate or elliptic, subacute or obtuse, suberect to patent, corolla tube white, outer surface glabrous or hairy (glabrous on Mokohinau Islands); tube hairy inside and often outside, 2.5–5.5 × 1.3–1.9 mm, narrowly funnelform to shortly cylindric, = to › calyx; usually hairy inside, sometimes outside. Stamen filaments white, 4.5–6.0 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, sparsely hairy (especially along septal grooves); 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.