Veronica hederifolia L.
ivy-leaved speedwell
Prostrate, somewhat hairy, annual; stems slender, decumbent, much-branched, rooting from nodes; internodes with bifarious hairs. Petioles 5-15 mm long. Lamina to 1.6 × 1.8 cm, oblong, suborbicular to reniform, hairy or glabrate, entire on basal lvs, otherwise usually 3-lobed; lateral lobes often with a small basal lobe; middle lobe largest; base broad-cuneate to subcordate; apices of lobes ± obtuse. Fls solitary in lf axils; pedicels 5-20 mm long, much > calyx, with hairs in a longitudinal band. Calyx 3-5 mm long; lobes broadly ovate, long-ciliate, cordate at base, acute at apex. Corolla 3-4 mm diam., pale blue. Capsule 3-6 mm diam., suborbicular or orbicular, glabrous. Seeds ± reniform, deeply concave on 1 side, tranversely ribbed on convex side.
N.: Takapau (Hawke's Bay), Feilding (Manawatu); S.: Lincoln (Canterbury), Owaka (Southland).
Temperate Eurasia, Macaronesia, N. Africa 1935
Cultivated land, waste ground, grass under trees.
FL Sep-Nov.
V. hederifolia is apparently rare in N.Z. but is doubtless often overlooked because of its insignificant fls. It was first collected at Owaka in 1920 and said to be troublesome in potato crops there. This is a complex sp. in Europe. N.Z. plants vary and either belong to subsp. hederifolia or are more like subsp. lucorum (Klett et Richter) Hartley, sometimes treated as V. sublobata M. Fischer (e.g., CHR 243175, Lincoln, Canterbury, Sykes, 6.9.1973). The sp. is unusual in N.Z. in having the very few seeds black, as well as a cordate base to the calyx lobes.
