Zieria alata

Zieria alata is a plant in the citrus family Rutaceae and is only found on mountains in the Mossman and Daintree areas in Queensland. It is an open shrub with wiry, lumpy branches, three-part leaves and small, white, cream-coloured or pale pink flowers in small groups, each with four petals and four stamens.

Description
Zieria alata is an open, sometimes straggly shrub which grows to a height of 3 m and has erect, wiry branches with raised, wing-like leaf bases blistered due to lumpy due to raised glands. The leaves have three parts, resembling clover leaves and the leaflets are elliptic to egg-shaped, 22-41 mm long and 7-13 mm wide. The leaflets have a distinct mid-vein on the lower surface and a few teeth on their sides near the tip. The leaf stalk is 12-18 mm long.

The flowers are white or cream to pale pink and are arranged in leaf axils in groups of between three and nine on a stalk 8-16 mm long. The groups are shorter than the leaves and usually only one to three flowers are open at the same time. The four petals are elliptical in shape, about 4 mm long and 2 mm wide and the four stamens are about 2 mm long. Flowering mainly occurs from July to September and is followed by fruit which is a glabrous capsule, about 3 mm long and 2 mm wide.

Taxonomy and naming
Zieria alata was first formally described in 2007 by Marco Duretto and Paul Irwin Forster from a specimen collected in the "North Mary Logging Area, State Forest 143" and the description was published in Austrobaileya. The specific epithet (alata) is a Latin word meaning "winged".

Distribution and habitat
This zieria grows near granite boulders in windswept heath and stunted closed forest in areas higher than 1000 m above sea leavel, on the ranges behind the Daintree River and Mossman.

Conservation
This zieria is not listed under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992.