Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Zieria caducibracteata

Flowering branches. Photographer Don Wood, Morton National Park

Flowering branches. Photographer Don Wood, McDonald State Forest west of Jervis Bay

Common name

Large-bracted Zieria

Family

Rutaceae

Where found

Forest. Coast and ranges north of the Kings Highway.

Notes

Tree or shrub to 6 m high. Young stems cylindrical, sometimes with longitudinal ridges, hairy with stellate and simple hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), becoming hairless, dotted with oil glands but not warty. Leaves with an unpleasant smell when rubbed, opposite each other, compound, with 3 leaflets, the central leaflet 3.2–12 cm long 3–19 mm wide, tips pointed (rounded in the Colo River gorge population); margins entire, upper surface hairless to hairy, lower surface paler, hairy with coarse, rough, longish hairs, to velvety predominantly with stellate hairs. Flowers white or pink, 9-15 mm in diameter, with 4 petals each 4-5 mm long, and with 4 stamens. Flower clusters shorter than the leaves, to 420 flowered, enclosed in a pair of bracts 8–12 mm long that fall early. Flowers late Autumn to Spring.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Zieria~caducibracteata (accessed 12 February, 2021)