Flora of New Zealand Series

Type locality: Kapiti Id. Type: W, 5297, H. H. Allan, Easter, 1924.

Branchlets very stout; lvs c. 27 × 15 mm., ± oblong to broad-obovate, almost fleshy, pale green; corolla white, to 2 cm. diam., the lobes all broad-ovate.

DIST.: N. Coast near base of Mt. Egmont, P. G. Morgan; Titahi Bay and Kapiti Id.

Veronica marginata Col. in T.N.Z.I. 28, 1896, 608 "from garden of Mr. A. Wall, Porirua, near Wellington" is from the description a form of H. elliptica, most probably var. crassifolia. No specimens have been seen.

Specimens from Lyttelton in Herb. Armstrong were collected in 1863 but the sp. is not now known on Banks Peninsula. There are no recent collections from Chatham Is but a flowering specimen in W certainly belonging to this sp. is labelled "Chatham Isds, G. Mair".

H. elliptica stands apart from all other N.Z. spp. in several very constant characters, even though the populations in different parts of the coast are by no means uniform. Plants differ widely in appearance because of variation in size and shape of lvs, length of internodes, and size and colour of fls; pubescence on stems is sts confined to well-defined bifarious bands, sts covers the whole surface while that on lf-margins is least developed in Subantarctic Is specimens where it may appear only near base and tip.

South American plants are considered to be conspecific; in one suite of specimens from a garden at Punta Arenas, Tierra del Fuego, most of the twigs have terminal as well as lateral racemes though on some, as in N.Z. plants, the apex of the shoot is vegetative.