Species profile—Zieria vagans (Gurgeena stink bush)
Classification
Plantae (plants) → Equisetopsida (land plants) → Rutaceae → Zieria vagans (Gurgeena stink bush)
Sighting data
Species details
- Kingdom
- Plantae (plants)
- Class
- Equisetopsida (land plants)
- Family
- Rutaceae
- Scientific name
- Zieria vagans Duretto & P.I.Forst.
- Common name
- Gurgeena stink bush
- WildNet taxon ID
- 28217
- Nature Conservation Act 1992 (NCA) status
- CR
- Conservation significant
- Yes
- Confidential
- No
- Endemicity
- Native
- Pest status
- Nil
- Description
- Zieria vagans is a shrub growing to 2 m tall, forming an open, straggly bush. The stems are erect to weakly decumbent. The young branches are densely stellate-tomentose, glandular verrucose and decurrent leaf base are absent. The leaves are palmately trifoliate. The petiole is 5 to 13 mm long, glandular verrucose, and densely stellate-tomentose. The terminal leaflets are narrowly elliptic, 32 to 45 mm long and 3.5 to 5.5 mm wide, tips are obtuse and the margins smooth to glandular dentate. The midribs and some secondary veins are raised on the adaxial leaflet surface and the midrib is glandular verrucose. The adaxial leaflet surface is glabrous or with a sparse indumentum of simple and/or stellate hairs. The abaxial surfaces are glandular verrucose and densely stellate-tomentose. The lateral leaflets are similar to the terminal leaflets but usually smaller, 23 to 26 mm long and 3.5 to 4.5 mm wide. The inflorescence is axillary, shorter than the subtending leaf, with 3 to 15 cream-white flowers, which are glandular verrucose and densely stellate-tomentose apart from the pedicels. The peduncle is 5 to 13 mm long. The bracts are narrow-oblong, persistent, and 1 to 6 mm long. The sepals are deltate, 0.8 to 1 mm wide and 0.1 to 1 mm long, valvate in bud, with acute tips, and glabrous adaxial surfaces apart from the puberulous margins. The abaxial surface of the sepals has a sparse to dense indumentum of stellate and simple hairs. The petals are elliptic, 2 mm wide and 1.2 to 1.3 mm long, valvate in bud, adaxial surface minutely pilose and the adaxial surface with a moderately dense simple and stellate indumentum. Cocci is 2.5 to 4.5 mm long and 1.6 to 2.2 mm wide, smooth and glabrous. The seeds are ovoid, 2 to 2.2 mm wide and 1 to 1.4 mm long, grey-black to black-purple in colour, dull and faintly longitudinally striated (Duretto and Forster, 2007).
Zieria vagans is closely related to Z. distans and Z. verrucosa. Z. vagans differs frm Z. verrucosa in that the leaves are held patently or erect (versus drooping), the leaflets are narrow-elliptic (versus linear) with a length/width ratio of 7.5 to 10.8 (versus 10 to 25.3), and the sepals are not obviously glandular. Z. vagans differs from Z. distans in the narrower leaflets, the woolly stellate-tomentose covered branchlets, the narrow-oblong inflorescence bracts (versus linear) and the sepals being glabrescent between the glands (Duretto and Forster, 2007). - Map
- View Map
- Distribution
- Zieria vagans is endemic to Queensland within the Brigalow Belt bioregion and is confined to the central Burnett district where all collections have been made on the Gurgeena Plateau near Binjour. The species has been recorded within the Gurgeena state forest (Duretto and Forster, 2007; Queensland Herbarium, 2012).
- Distributional limits
- -25.4234167, 151.381141
-25.4524787, 151.3927394 - Range derivation
- Range derived from extent of the taxon's verified records
- Habitat
- Zieria vagans is found on the Gurgeena Plateau where it occurs as an understory component in semi-evergreen vine thicket forest dominated by Backhousia kingii and Gossia bidwillii on red clay soils or in the ecotone between this community and adjacent eucalypt woodland (Duretto and Forster, 2007). Other associated species include Corymbia citriodora, E. crebra, and E. melanoleuca (Queensland Herbarium, 2012).
- Reproduction
- Flowering of Zieria vagans has been recorded from October-March and fruiting from December to March (Duretto and Forster, 2007; Queensland Herbarium, 2012).
- Threatening processes
- Direct threats to Zieria vagans include grazing from stock and fire. In addition weeds threaten some sites, where there are a number of environmental weeds such as Aristolochia elegans establishing (Dutchman's pipe) (Duretto and Forster, 2007).
- Status notes
- Zieria vagans is listed as Endangered under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992.
- Management recommendations
- There are no current management recommendations in the literature.
- Notes
- Zieria vagans is located within the Burnett Pastoral District (Bostock and Holland, 2010).
- References
- Bostock, P.D. and Holland, A.E. (eds) (2010). Census of the Queensland Flora 2010. Queensland Herbarium, Department of Environment and Resource Management, Brisbane.
Duretto, M.F. and Forster, P.I. (2007). A taxonomic revision of the genus Zieria Sm. (Rutaceae) in Queensland. Austrobaileya 7 (3): 480-482, .
Queensland Herbarium (2012). Specimen label information. Queensland Herbarium. Accessed 09/01/2012. - Profile author
- Lynise Wearne (10/01/2012)
Other resources
Data source
This profile data is sourced from the QLD Wildlife Data API using the Get species by ID function used under CC-By 4.0.
https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/species/?op=getspeciesbyid&taxonid=28217.
This information is sourced from the WildNet database managed by the Queensland Department of Environment and Science.
