Veronica plebeia R.Br.
Australian speedwell
Perennial herb; stems creeping and rooting at nodes; internodes with retrorse bifarious hairs. Petioles 3-15 mm long, prominent and ± retrorsely puberulent. Lamina 4-32 × 3-30 mm, ± triangular, strongly and irregularly dentate or dentate-serrate, hairy beneath, particularly on veins, glabrous or, less commonly, puberulent above; base truncate to subcordate; apex obtuse to subacute. Racemes axillary, opposite, with (2)-5- c. 20 fls; peduncles and pedicels slender, very variable in length, retrorsely puberulent. Bracts small, much < pedicels. Calyx 3-5 mm long; lobes oblong or elliptic-obovate, ciliate, somewhat puberulent or glabrous, obtuse and mucronate. Corolla 6-7 mm diam., not opening widely, blue or pale blue. Capsule 3-4 mm wide, obovoid, glabrous, ± emarginate. Seed broadly ellipsoid-oblong, smooth, strongly flattened.
N.: N. Auckland, S. Auckland, Bay of Plenty, N. Hawke's Bay.
Temperate Australia 1838
Grassy slopes and cliff tops near the sea, open Leptospermum scrub, and similar partially modified and open habitats.
FL Oct-Mar.
This speedwell may have been commoner in the 19th century than at present judging from the scarcity of recent specimens and from comments by Cheeseman (1925), although it is still fairly common in parts of N. Auckland. V. plebeia was treated as indigenous to N.Z. by Hooker (1853, as V. elongata Benth.), and later Cheeseman (1925). V. calycina Cunn. non R. Br. is based on material of V. plebeia from the Bay of Islands. Allan (1940, 1961) failed to mention the sp., but suggested elsewhere that it is naturalised. Its status remains uncertain. V. plebeia always occurs in habitats which have been at least partly modified, and the area in which it grows was among the first to be utilised by Europeans, but it could just as well have been present before their arrival. In Australia the plants are very similar and grow in similar habitats.
