Cone and branchlets. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Male flowers and branchlets. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Trees. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Bark. Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Common Name

Belah, Black Oak

Family

Casuarinaceae

Notes

Tree to 15m tall.  Leaves reduced to scales sheathing the joints between the stem sections.  Male and female flowers on different plants.  Flowers tiny (less than 3mm across), brown, red or yellow, with 0 petals. Male flower groups catkin-like, at the ends of the branchlets, female flowers at the ends of short side branchlets.

Differs from Casuarina cristata in that the green articles are strongly waxy and densely covered in short hairs.  Differs from Casuarina obesa in that there are 8-13 teeth per article, the cones are 10-16mm in diameter with several obvious striations, and the seeds are 5.5-10.5mm long.

Description and photograph of tree (as Casuarina cristata ssp. pauper) in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 207

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Casuarina~pauper