Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Allocasuarina diminuta

Male flowers. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Female flower on stem. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer AN Schmidt-Lebuhn, Koorawatha Nature Reserve, south of Cowra

Cones on stems. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer AN Schmidt-Lebuhn, Illunie Nature Reserve, south of Cowra

Male (left) and female (right) shrubs. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Goobang National Park, east of Peak Hill

Common name

 None

Family

Casuarinaceae

Where found

Woodland and heath, on sandstone ridges and hillsides.

subsp. annectens  Mainly ranges and tablelands between Jervis Bay and Queanbeyan. Occasionally elsewhere.

subsp. diminuta  Mainly tablelands and Western Slopes north from the Hume Highway. Occasionally elsewhere.

subsp. mimica  North of Nowra. Coast, ranges, and tablelands.

Notes

Shrub or small tree to 5 m high. Bark smooth. Branchlets to 23 cm long; articles often with a waxy bloom, 5–12 mm long, 0.5–1.1 mm in diameter. Leaves very small, forming whorls of teeth on the branchlets. Teeth broad- to narrow-triangular, more or less straight-sided, erect to spreading, and overlapping. Male and female flowers on the same plant or on different plants. Male flowers brown, in spikes, female flowers red, in tight clusters, appearing single. Male spikes 0.5–5 cm long, with 5–10 whorls of flowers per cm of spike length. Cone body 5–20 mm long, 5–12 mm in diameter, bracteoles thickly woody and convex, squared off to broad-pointed. Mature 'seeds' 3.5–5 mm long, with one wing, red-brown to black, shining.

subsp. annectens  Shrub 1–2.5 m high. Articles not waxy, ridges angular to rounded-convex. Teeth 6–8, broad- or narrow-triangular with straight or somewhat convex margins. Cone bracteoles blunt to squared-off.

subsp. diminuta  Shrub 2–5 m high. Articles often waxy, ridges rounded-convex (occasionally only slightly so). Teeth 6 or 7, narrow-triangular usually with straight margins. Cone bracteoles blunt to squared-off.

Introduced to Vic.

subsp. mimica  Shrub or small tree 1-5 m high. Articles often waxy, ridges angular to rounded-convex; teeth 6–10, broad-triangular with convex margins. Cone bracteoles blunt to broad-pointed.

Endangered population in the Sutherland and Liverpool local government areas.

Provisions of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 No 63 relating to the protection of protected plants generally also apply to plants that are a threatened species or a part of a threatened ecological community.

NSW Threatened Species profile:  http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedSpeciesApp/profile.aspx?id=20281 (accessed 3 January, 2021)

PlantNET description of species and key to subspecies:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Allocasuarina~diminuta  (accessed 3 January, 2021)