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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Plantaginaceae
Veronica hillebrandii

Citation: F. Muell., Trans. Phil. Soc. Vic. 1:49 (1855).

Synonymy: V. distans sensu Benth., Fl. Aust. 4:509 (1868), partly, auct. non R. Br.

Common name: Coast speedwell.

Description:
Perennial herb with a woody rootstock, producing long stolons and decumbent to scandent herbaceous branches 4-32 cm long, with retrorse eglandular hairs of both dense short and scattered coarser longer types spread all around or in 2 rows on the branches and in single rows on the rhachis and pedicels, sometimes scattered on the leaves and sepals; leaves opposite, connected across the node by a ridge, the petioles 1-2 rarely 4 mm long, the blade narrow- to broad-ovate or elliptic, 5-30 x 3-17 mm, with the base rounded to attenuate, the margin recurved, coarsely serrate, rarely entire, and the apex acute to obtuse, rarely rounded, the leaves on the stolons often longer petiolate.

Racemes in the upper axils, 4-10-flowered, the bracts ovate to narrow-elliptic, 2-10 mm long, the pedicels ascending, longest at the base of the raceme, 5-30 mm long in fruit; sepals 4, narrow-elliptic, 4-7 mm long, fused only at the base; corolla blue, with 4 rounded lobes 8-10 mm long, the upper the broadest, more deeply coloured, red at the base, the lower the narrowest; stamens with filaments flattened, the anthers broad, 1-1.4 mm long; ovary glabrous, the stigma 0.25-0.4 mm diam.

Capsule greatly compressed, loculicidal, sometimes secondarily septicidal, transverse-ovate, 3.5-4 x 3.5-5.5 mm, glabrous, shallow-emarginate to truncate with a sometimes persistent style 5-6.5 mm long.

image of FSA3_Veronica_hil.jpg Leaf and fruit.
Image source: fig. 596C in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Distribution:  On calcareous sands, shallow on exposed coastal cliff tops or on dunes; in sclerophyllous shrubland.

S.Aust.: EP, MU, YP, SL, KI, SE.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: late Nov. — Dec. (March).


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

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: V. hillebrandii differs from the Western Australian V. distans in its smaller and less deeply serrate leaves, short petioles, shorter stem indumentum and usually flexuose rhachis (B. G. Briggs pets. comm.).

Author: Not yet available


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