Flora of New Zealand Series

type locality: "Moist debris on Mount Tapuaenuku, Inner Clarence Basin, Marlborough, 2150 m. altitude" Type: BD 75691, G. Simpson.

Prostrate, closely branched softly woody plant, forming closely matted patches 20-30 cm. diam. Stems 10-20 cm. long, rooting sparingly; ascending branchlets closely uniformly lfy. Lvs widespreading and recurved, c. 5 × 2 mm., broadly obovate, narrowed to slightly connate base; lamina fleshy, obtuse, lower margin finely ciliolate. Flowering heads terminal, c. 2 × 1·5 cm., lax, formed of reduced 2-4-fld spikes. Bracts 4 mm. long, linear, obtuse. Calyx-lobes resembling bracts. Corolla white, tube 5 × 2 mm., lobes 3 × 1·5-2.5 mm. Capsule 5 × 2.5 mm., obtuse.

DIST.: S. Known only from

The above diagnosis is extracted from the authors' description. Besides many specimens from the original gathering there is in BD one twig from a plant grown in Dunedin by Simpson. The specimens show some differences from the description: (a) upper lf-margins are only very rarely "obscurely and coarsely toothed"; (b) the capsules are narrowly pointed, only very slightly didymous, and compressed not "laterally" as stated but dorsally with septum across broadest diam., forming typical Hebe valves; (c) except in the cultivated plant the infls are much smaller and simpler than described.

Most of the infls are imperfectly developed with many empty bracts; several are inclined to be pedunculate and this tendency increases in the cultivated specimen. This character is also seen in a much larger and more laxly branched specimen W 5363 "Veronica haastii, 5-7000 ft., Tapuaenuku, Feb. 1926, B. C. Aston", which also has irregular and partly aborted infls. In the two gatherings the lvs are similar in shape, though differing in size, and in both the lf-apex is thickened and dimpled in a peculiar way. If both are hybrids one parent might well be H. haastii which also occurs on Mt. Tapuaenuku.