Citation: B. Briggs & Errend., Taxon 17:742 (1968).

Synonymy: Veronica derwentiana Andrews, Bot. Rep. 8:t. 531 (1808) as "derwentia" in error; V. labiata R. Br., Prod. Fl. Nov. Holl. 434 (1810).

Common name: Derwent speedwell, white veronica.

Description:
Perennial with long erect to ascending branches to 2 m high, glabrous but for a patch of straight or irregularly curled eglandular hairs at and below the nodes and a row of sparse or dense antrorsely curved white eglandular hairs on the rhachis decurrent from either side of the bracts and sometimes on the pedicel; leaves connected across the node by a ridge, sessile, ovate, 4-14.5 x 1.2-4 cm, with the margin regularly or irregularly, densely or coarsely serrate, narrowly recurved, long-acuminate.

Inflorescences long dense axillary racemes forming a corymb at each branch end; bracts much shorter than the leaves, linear, 2-9 mm long, entire; pedicels shorter than the subtending bract, 3-7 mm long in fruit; sepals 4, triangular, 1.5-3 mm long, fused in the basal quarter; corolla wrote, pale-blue or pale-mauve, pubescent in the tube, with 4 more or less equal, acute to acuminate lobes 3-5 mm long; stamens with filaments flat for the most part, two-thirds the length of the corolla lobes, the anthers broad, 1-1.3 mm long.

Capsule ovoid, somewhat compressed, c. 3.5 x 2.6 mm and obtuse in lateral view, septicidal and simultaneously or incompletely loculicidal, with a fine ridge down the centre of each valve, broadly channelled between them, with a slender deciduous style 4.5-5.5 mm long.

	Flowering branch, flower and fruit.
Image source: fig. 595B in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Burbidge & Gray (1970) Flora of A.C.T., fig. 335.

Distribution:  Beside streams and waterfalls or associated with limestone caverns.   N.S.W.; Vic.; Tas. Conservation status: native Flowering time: Oct. — Jan. (March).

SA Distribution Map based on current data relating to specimens held in the State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: Now rare in S.Aust. The second SE location is based on a sighting in 1983 by D. N. Kraehenbuehl. The species is polymorphic in the toothing of the foliage, with 3 of the unpublished subspecies recognised by B. Briggs and F. Ehrendorfer occurring in this State.

Author: Not yet available