Flora of New Zealand Series

Veronica traversii Hook. f. in Bot. Mag. 104, 1878, t. 6390 non Handbk N.Z. Fl. 1864, 208.

Type locality: ? Type: K, "From Sir J. D. Hooker's Garden, March-June 1893" (chosen by V. S. Summerhayes).

Rounded bushy shrub to 1 m. tall. Branchlets very finely pubescent, length of internodes 1-3 × diam. Lvs erecto-patent to occ. deflexed, 1·5-2.5 cm. × 4-6 mm., elliptic to lanceolate, rather light green, smooth above, dull with ∞ stomata beneath; lf-bud with long narrow sinus, the lamina cuneately narrowed into short winged petiole; lamina acute, entire, glab. except for fine pubescence on slightly bevelled margin. Infls lateral, mostly simple but a few bi- or tri-partite on many plants, c. 2-4 cm. long; peduncle < adjacent lvs, finely pubescent. Bracts narrow, ciliolate, lowest acute, upper ones obtuse, mostly > pedicels which decrease from c. 2.5 mm. at base of raceme to < 1 mm. near its tip. Calyx-lobes c. 1·5 mm. long, obtuse to subacute in same fl., ciliolate. Corolla white, tube c. 3 mm. long, rather broad, lobes c. = tube. Capsule erect, c. 4 × 3 mm., glab.

DIST.: S. Canterbury and Amuri districts, probably extending to mountains of Nelson.

FL. 12-3.

Very closely related to H. venustula of North Id, the main points of difference being (a) more definitely winged petiole, associated with narrower, sts almost closed sinus; (b) infls us. simple though occ. with some tendency to branching; (c) calyx rarely to 2 mm. long. Plants from Nelson mountains more commonly have branched infls and their relations to both H. divaricata and H. venustula need investigation.

Summerhayes provided the name H. brachysiphon for the "species figured by Hooker [under the name V. traversii] in Bot. Mag. t. 6390" and he pointed out the floral differences between this and the type of V. traversii. Though the corolla-tube in H. brachysiphon is shorter in relation to the calyx than in H. traversii and notably wider, it is still definitely longer than the calyx and relatively much longer than in several of the spp. here regarded, on characters other than length of corolla-tube, as closely allied to H. traversii. Of the four short-tubed "wild specimens" in K referred by Summerhayes to H. brachysiphon at least three, judging by similarly numbered duplicates in Herb. Cheeseman, appear to belong to other spp., and there is no evidence that H. brachysiphon itself extends as far south as northern Otago.