Veronica derwentiana subsp. maideniana 081128-7815

Description:

Yarrangobilly Caves, Kosciuszko National Park, New South Wales.Herbaceous perennial with radiating cane-like stems to about 1.5 m long, growing in sheltered hollow beside large limestone outcrop. Also occurs in moist forest off the limestone.This species and its close relatives in Australia have undergone changes in classification. Up until the mid 1960s all were included in Veronica. More intense study, including chromosome evidence, showed them to be allied to New Zealand species, justifying a reclassification into genus Parahebe in 1968. In 1992 the Australian Parahebes were (with 1 exception) segregated further into the genus Derwentia. However, all this was overturned a decade or so later, when major cladistic studies based largely on molecular evidence showed that these segregates (including Hebe!) all evolved from wihin Veronica as still recognised.In cladistic jargon, Veronica in the narrow sense was found to be paraphyletic. To maintain Veronica as a "natural" genus it was argued that the best solution was to sink all these segregate genera back into a "super-Veronica", and the nomenclatural formalities for this have all been published. The alternative would be to create many more segregate genera to accommodate all the basal branches of the Veronica Clade. Trouble is, many of these show no obvious morphological differences at generic level from each other or from Veronica in the narrowest sense (V. officinalis and allies). An extreme case of the latter kind of solution would be Dendrobium, split into over 30 genera by Clements & Jones -- still provoking much debate in orchid circles!Australian botanical institutions have rather reluctantly gone back to the all-inclusive Veronica. Not so sure about New Zealand, though, as Hebe is such a well known concept there.