Zieria littoralis

Location & distribution maps

Plant  information

Common name:                Dwarf Zieria

Conservation status:  ...

Etymology:   

• The name Zieria honours "John Zier, a Polish botanist, who assisted F.C. Ehrhart in his collection of plants of the Electorate of Hanover, 1780-83, and afterwards worked in London, where he died in 1793"

• The specific epithet (littoralis) is a Latin word meaning "of the seashore"

Flowers:                  

• The flowers are arranged in clusters of between three and thirty in leaf axils, the clusters usually shorter than the leaves

• The sepals are triangular, about 2.5 mm long and covered with woolly hairs

• The four petals are white to pale pink, 3–5 mm long and hairy on the outer surface, glabrous on the inner one

• There are four stamens

• Flowering occurs from winter to early summer 

Fruit:                         

• Hairy capsules

Leaves:         

• The leaves are also velvety and are composed of three egg-shaped leaflets with a petiole 1–3 mm long

• The central leaflet is 4–20 mm long, 2–9 mm wide

• Both surfaces of the leaflets are warty and covered with velvety hairs 

• The upper surface is a darker green than the lower one

• The edges of the leaflets are rolled under. 

Stem & branches: 

• Its branches are covered with velvety hairs, at least when young

Roots:         

Habit:        

• An erect or spreading shrub 

• Grows to a height of 0.2–2 m

Habitat:   

• Grows on exposed, rocky coastal headlands

Distribution:                  

• Endemic to south-eastern Australia

• From Tathra in NSW, on the far north east coast of Victoria, on Gabo Island and on the central east coast of Tasmania

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy and naming

  • Was first formally described in 2002 by James Armstrong from a specimen collected near the Green Cape lighthous

  • The description was published in Australian Systematic Botany

Sources of information:

• (2023)