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Veronica pulvinaris, one of the cushion snow hebes, is a species of flowering plant in the family Plantaginaceae. It is endemic to high elevation habitats of the mountains of the northern and central South Island of New Zealand, mostly east of the main divide. Joseph Dalton Hooker described Pygmea pulvinaris in 1864, which was transferred to the genus Veronica in 1906 by Thomas Cheeseman. Plants of this species are dioecious cushions with small, spirally imbricate, sessile leaves that have sparsely but evenly distributed hairs mostly on the upper half of the leaf surfaces and edges. They also have regular flowers with white tubular corollas with 5 petals and 2 stamens, and both the ovary and capsule have a dense covering of hairs at the apex. The conservation status of V. pulvinaris is not threatened. It is closely related to other snow hebe species, especially the other cushions, V.
The water-soluble compounds that were isolated and identified from V. pulvinaris and another snow hebe species, V. thomsonii, showed that the iridoid chemical profile of these species was different from other New Zealand Veronica species, and more similar to high-elevation species of Veronica from the northern hemisphere. The authors of that study hypothesized that the similar chemical profiles were the result of convergent or parallel evolution due to their similar alpine habitats. In addition, there were some unique compounds that could differentiate V. pulvinaris and V. thomsonii from one another, as well as the two sampled populations of V. pulvinars from the Black Birch Range (Marlborough) and Mt Arthur.
Veronica pulvinars is endemic to the South Island of New Zealand, including northwest Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury and possibly Otago, mostly on the eastern side of the main divide. Plants of this species can be found from 600 to 2260 m above sea level in alpine cushion herbfield or fellfield, usually in rocky areas including bluffs, crevices, stones and scree.
Speedwell · Veronica pimeleoides · Veronica sect. Hebe · French Speedwell · Green field speedwell · Veronica Recurva · Alpine speedwell · American speedwell · Water speedwell · Leafless-stemmed speedwell · Veronica arcuata · Veronica arenaria
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Veronica pulvinaris by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
