Spreading shrub to about 50 cm tall with thick branches. Leaves to 2 cm long, oblong, thick, waxy-grey, overlapping, cupped, with a broad, stem-clasping base. Flower clusters short in a dense white head about 2 cm long.
New Zealand
H. albicans (Petrie) Ckn from New Zealand is a shrub to about 50 cm or so tall with a compact habit and thick branches. Leaves ovate to oblong, to about 2 cm long, close together, markedly waxy-grey, stalkless. Flowers in short, broad, white clusters with pronounced purple anthers. Calyx pinkish at first.
H. buchananii (Hook. f.) Ckn from New Zealand is a small shrub to 30 cm tall with thick, twisted branches. Leaves ovate, thick, to 7 mm or so long and broad, entire, with thick midrib. Flower clusters lateral, to 2 cm long; spring to summer. Flowers numerous, white, stalkless.
H. pimeleoides (Hook. f.) Ckn is similar but has coloured, not white, flowers, thin branchlets and leaves that are relatively pliant and narrowly elliptic, while the also similar H. pinguifolia (Hook. f.) Ckn & Allan has imbricate leaves and white flowers so densely arranged that the axis is concealed.
Source: (2002). Scrophulariaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.