Flora of New Zealand Series

Veronica pubescens Banks et Sol. ex Benth. in DC. Prodr. 10, 1846, 460.

Type locality: "near Opuragi" [Mercury Bay]. Type: BM, Banks and Solander.

Diffusely branched shrub to 2 m. tall. Branchlets green above, bronze below, ± villous-pubescent, length of internodes us. 3-6 × diam. Lvs spreading, 3·5-9 × 0.6-2·4 cm. (often wide range on one plant), oblong-lanceolate, rather soft; lf-bud with sinus ± obscured by hairs from lf-margins; lamina sts almost auricled above broad short petiole, acuminate to narrow obtuse tip, us. whole undersurface (at least when young) clad in soft villous hairs; longer hairs fringing entire margin and underside of midrib, shorter pubescence above midrib. Infls lateral, simple, >, sts much > lvs; peduncle 10-25 mm. long, closely minutely villous. Fls rather close, pedicels 2-3 mm. long, mostly c. = narrow villous bracts. Calyx-lobes c. 2 mm. long, narrow, acute, villous all over. Corolla white or lavender, us. hairy outside, tube c. = calyx, lobes > tube, narrow. Capsule rounded, us. glab. except for a few hairs near style base, < 2 × calyx.

DIST.: N. Coromandel Peninsula. Open forest.

FL. 1-9.

Bentham described the plant as being covered in all parts in short rufous-fulvous hairs, but in the type (fide N. E. Brown) "the upper surface of the leaves is glabrous with a pubescent midrib".

Cockayne and Allan (loc. cit.) record that specimens from Mercury Bay differ considerably in hairiness and in the colour of the hairs.

A specimen from Piha Creek (A 22185, B. E. G. Molesworth, 25.4.38) suggests that the distribution may extend beyond Coromandel Peninsula and adjacent islands.