Casuarina cristata Miq.

Miquel, F.A.W. (1848) Revisio critica Casuarinarum: 70, t. X A. Type: Lachlan R. [Condobolin area], N.S.W., A. Cunningham; holo: K, with cones; iso: U.

Belah

Tree to 20 metres with drooping branchlets; trunk furrowed; bark dark brown to black, scaly; buds hairy; stems and branchlets glabrous, about 1mm diam., slightly waxy; broadly ridged longitudinally, jointed at leaf-whorls into segments (‘articles’) 8 - 17mm long.

Scale-like, erect, in whorls of 8 - 12, 0.5 - 0.7mm long, apparently veinless.

Unisexual; plants dioecious; males inflorescences slender spikes 13 - 50mm long terminal on long branchlets; male flowers with 1 - 2 tepals; stamen 1; female inflorescences terminal on short lateral branches; females flowers with 2 bracteoles; perianth absent; carpels 2, fused; style 2-armed, reddish.

Cones 13 - 20mm long, 10 - 16mm wide; peduncle 1 - 14mm long; floral bracteoles enlarged, woody, opening at maturity to release the winged samara (the indehiscent fruit) 6 - 10mm long; seed 1 per samara.

Not available.

Endemic to Australia, occurs in CEQ, and widespread in inland parts of Queensland and New South Wales. Altitudinal range inCEQfrom 10-450 m. Usually grows in sclerophyll woodland and open forest but also occurs in vine thickets and dry rainforest.

Casuarina quadrivalvis var. cristata (Miq.) Miq., Flora: oder Allgemeine Botanischer Zeitung 48: 18 (1865). Casuarina lepidophloia F.Muell., Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 10(87): 115 (1877), Type: "In eremis inter fluvios Bogan, Darling's et Lachlan's River; una cum C. glauca; L. Morton. Prope flumen Murray-River in depressis locis aridioribus."  Casuarina cambagei R.T.Baker, Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 24(4): 605, t. xlvi. (1900), Type: "Mount Hope. Forbes, Bogan River Country, Condobolin, Nymagee (R.H. Cambage) Bourke to Barringun (R. Ridge). In fact it occurs from the Queensland to the Victorian borders between the Darling River and the main Dividing Range."

1257