Hebe loganioides (J. F. Armstr.) Wall

A dwarf, conifer-like shrub, usually well under 1 ft in height; often only 4 to 6 in. Stems erect, becoming decumbent with age; when young, furnished with soft, pale hairs. Leaves 1⁄8 to 1⁄6 in. long, ovate or lanceolate, tapering from a broad stalkless base to a bluntish point, sometimes entire, sometimes with one or two comparatively large teeth at each side, erect or spreading, keeled at the back, dull green, glabrous. Flowers pure white (sometimes pink-veined), 1⁄4 to 1⁄3 in. across, produced in June and July in a terminal, single or three-branched inflorescence, on which the flowers open successively for some weeks. Sepals ovate-oblong, pointed, with hairy margins; corolla-tube short, scarcely so long as the sepals. Main and secondary flower-stalks hairy. Bot. Mag., t. 7404.

H. loganioides is a pleasing dwarf evergreen distinct among this group in its hairy stems and racemes; its small, closely set, spreading, frequently toothed leaves; and in the flattish seed-vessel splitting across the narrowest diameter.

The taxonomic status of this hebe is uncertain. Most probably all the cultivated plants descend by cuttings from the original one discovered by J. F. Armstrong in the Upper Rangitata in 1869. It is possibly a hybrid between a whip-cord hebe and Parahebe lyallii. See further in Flora of New Zealand, Vol. 1, p. 950.