Zieria arborescens

Zieria arborescens Sims (Rutaceae), stinkwood or tree zieria, is a slender, soft-wooded large shrub or small tree endemic to the cool moist forests of south-eastern Australia, from south-eastern Queensland through eastern New South Wales and Victoria to Tasmania. Plants reach 2-8 m tall with smooth grey, longitudinally fissured bark on slender trunks and minutely hairy young shoots. The opposite trifoliolate leaves are aromatic and emit a strong unpleasant musty odour when crushed (whence 'stinkwood'); leaflets are narrowly elliptic to lanceolate, 3-12 cm long, dark green and glabrous above, paler and minutely glandular beneath. Axillary cymes carry many small four-merous white to pale pink flowers 6-10 mm across with four spreading petals, four stamens and a four-lobed superior ovary. Fruits are small four-lobed schizocarps separating into one-seeded cocci that explosively eject the seed. It is a characteristic understorey species of wet sclerophyll forest, gully rainforest margins and recently disturbed cool-temperate sites, often abundant after fire.