Zieria laevigata

An erect shrub to a height of 1.5 m.

It had a widespread natural distribution, growing mostly north of Jervis Bay (with a few records around Braidwood); extending north through Nowra and the southern highlands, through Sydney and the Blue Mountains to east of Kandos. There is then some disjunction in the distribution, with scattered mid and far north coast records, which extend to Brisbane; with another cluster of records in the northern tablelands, between Tamworth and Warwick in Queensland.

It is typically found in heathland and dry sclerophyll woodland and forest, on
skeletal sandy soils as well as granite.

The branches have prominent ridges which aid identification and are mostly hairless.

Zieria spp. have leaves arranged in opposite pairs, compound with three leaflets (tri-foliolate) or one leaflet (uni-foliolate). When trifoliolate, the leaflets are often similar in shape with the middle leaflet often larger, and with leaves usually strongly odorous, green to grey-green.

In this species, the leaves are tri-foliolate, with leaflets elliptic to linear, to 40 mm long and to 3 mm wide, without warts and with margins crenate (wavy) and rolled under; upper surface deep green, lower surface paler to white.

Zieria spp. have flowers arranged in groups (cymose clusters) in the leaf axils and have four sepals joined at the base and four petals, alternating with the sepals. There are four stamens and four fused carpels. In this species, the flowers are produced in leaf axils, in clusters of 3 usually; however, they can number up to 25, with clusters about the same length as the leaves; white to pale pink and occurring from August to December.

Zieria have a fruit described as a schizocarp-capsule which splits into segments called cocci (singular coccus). Fruit generally have four cocci, each containing one or two seeds.
In this species, the fruits are glabrous with scattered warts.