Veronica ochracea (Ashwin) Garn.-Jones

A low, openly branched shrub usually under 2 ft high, with stout, blackish, spreading main stems, the laterals arching, and the ultimate branchlets of mature plants confined to the upper side of the laterals. It is a member of the whipcord group, the leaves closely appressed, about 1⁄16 in. long, deltoid, narrowed to a keeled, slightly incurved, blunt tip, olive-green, but strongly tinged with ochre-yellow at the tip and to a lesser degree along the margins, connate for about one-third of their length; on the ultimate branchlets the tip of each leaf usually reaches to the junction of the leaf-pair above, so that the internodes are exposed only below the leaf-insertions, but on the extension growths the leaf-pairs are somewhat more widely spaced. Flowers white, in short terminal spikes; anterior calyx-lobes united; corolla-tube as broad as wide, equalling or longer than the calyx. Capsules ovoid, longer than the calyx.

Native of the South Island of New Zealand, where it is confined to Nelson province. Although discovered towards the end of the last century, it was first described in 1961, having been previously confused with V. armstrongii and other species. The date of introduction to Britain is not certain, but it seems to have become widely available in commerce quite recently (for an older introduction grown under the name V. armstrongii see the entry for that species).

V. ochracea is remarkable for the brown coloration of the whole plant, which derives mainly from the growing points of the ultimate branchlets, where the ochre-coloured tips of the leaves are concentrated. If a potted plant is turned on its side, the colour appears to change to olive-green.