Flora of New Zealand Series

Veronica canescens Kirk in T.N.Z.I. 9, 1877, 503, t. 19 non Schrad. (1803) nec Bast. (1812) nec Presl ex Schult. (1821).

V. lilliputiana Stearn in Gdnrs' Chron. 129, No. 3359, 1951, 166.

Type locality: Lake Lyndon, Canterbury. Type: W, 5122, T. Kirk.

Minute, prostrate, creeping and rooting herb forming grey matted patches 15-20 cm. diam.; stems up to c. 10 cm. long, filiform, much-branched, sparsely white-hairy. Lvs subsessile or shortly petiolate, 1-2.5 × 1-1·5 mm., broad-ovate, obtuse, entire, rather sparsely clad on both surfaces, especially on margins and midribs, in lax flattened white hairs. Fls solitary on axillary white-hairy peduncles ± 2-5 mm. long; bracts 2, lflike; pedicel = or > peduncle, densely white-hairy. Calyx c. 3 mm. long, densely white-hairy; lobes lanceolate-oblong, obtuse, sts a small fifth lobe present. Corolla blue, c. 5-6 mm. long; tube short, broad-funnel-form, < or = calyx; lobes 4, unequal, c. 3-4 × 2.5 mm., obovate-oblong, emarginate. Capsule c. 1·5 × 2 mm., < calyx, broad-obcordate, ± compressed, glab.

DIST.: S. Coastal to lower montane, east of divide, from north Canterbury to Otago, us. marginal to lakes and lagoons in muddy patches drying in summer.

HYBRIDISM

Cockayne and Allan (Ann. Bot., Lond. 48, 1934, 42) list, without supporting evidence, V. diffusa × lanceolata and V. diffusa × lyallii. Though interfertility throughout the P. catarractae complex would not be unexpected it remains to be proved to what extent the polymorphy can be resolved into distinct forms and hybrid intermediates. Hybridism may possibly contribute to the difficulty in separating P. catarractae and P. lyallii in certain areas and it seems probable that the ill-defined limits of forms of P. hookeriana are caused, at least in part, by crossing with P. catarractae.

P. × bidwillii (Hook.) W. R. B. Oliver (pro sp.). Veronica bidwillii Hook. Ic. Pl. 1852, t. 814 non Hook. f. Handbk N.Z. Fl. 1864 and later authors. Parahebe decora M. B. Ashwin × P. lyallii (Hook. f.) W. R. B. Oliver. Type locality: "Bed of the River Wairau, about 2,500 feet above the level of the sea". Type: K, Bidwill. The plant shown in Hooker's t. 814 and represented in K by five pieces under Bidwill no. 15 is not the same as that figured by Cheeseman (Ill. N.Z. Fl. 2, 1914, t. 157) as V. bidwillii and here named P. decora. Bidwill's specimens differ in more toothed, often larger lvs, shorter peduncles, us. separated basal fls and pedicels ± covered with small arching hairs, and in all these respects they approach P. lyallii. The characters of the type material of V. bidwillii Hook. are consistent with its being a hybrid between P. lyallii and P. decora and this interpretation is supported by some other specimens intermediate between these two us. distinct spp. from localities where both occur.

Plants of Parahebe are easily cultivated and offer good opportunities for artificial crossing and progeny-testing.

In cultivated material occ. 2-3-fld peduncles have been seen.