Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Zieria arborescens
Common name
Stinkwood, Forest Zieria, Tall Zieria
Family
Rutaceae
Where found
subsp. arborescens: Rainforest margins and wet forest. Coast and ranges.
subsp. decurrens: Dry forest. Only from the Jervis Bay area, mainly in Jervis Bay Territory.
Notes
Tree or shrub to 10 m high. Bark brown, becoming rough. Branchlets slightly to distinctly ridged, often scurfy to hairy with stellate hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see) or almost hairless, rarely faintly glandular-warty. Leaves with an unpleasant smell when rubbed, opposite each other, usually compound, with 3 leaflets, rarely with only one leaflet on the flowering branchlets. Leaflets 2.4–14 cm long, 4–26 mm wide, tips pointed, margins entire and more or less curved down; upper surface more or less hairless, dark green; lower surface hairy to stellate-tomentose, paler, not warty, but dotted with oil glands. Flowers white, with 4 petals each 3–7 mm long, and with 4 stamens. Flower clusters usually shorter than the leaves, usually 120–500-flowered. Flowers Winter to Summer.
subsp. arborescens: Tall robust shrub or small tree to 10 m high. Younger branchlets slightly ridged, scurfy to hairy with short stellate hairs, more rarely almost hairless. Older branchlets rarely faintly glandular warty, hairless or almost hairless.
subsp. decurrens: Tall robust shrub to 3 m high. Branchlets distinctly ridged, particularly on the older sections, not warty, hairy on very young branchlets with scattered stellate hairs (more densely between the ridges). Older branches hairless, or rarely more or less hairy in between the ridges.
PlantNET description of species and key to subspecies: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Zieria~arborescens (accessed 12 February, 2021)
This identification key and fact sheets are available as a free mobile application:
