Your gateway to a wide range of natural resources information and associated maps

Victorian Resources Online

Belah

Back | Salinity Indicator Plants Home | Common name home | Scientific name home | Photo Gallery | Glossary



Scientific Name: Casuarina pauper


Other Common Name:


Black Oak


Status:


Australian native.


Plant Description:


Tree from 10-12 m tall with finely fissured, scaly, grey-brown bark and long, jointed, slender, wiry, ribbed, grey-green,
branchlets with tiny 1 mm long teeth (reduced leaves) in whorls of 9-20.

Plants are either male or female. Male flowers in elongated spikes, 1-3 cm long, with alternating tooth-like bracts. Female flowers in globular to ovoid heads on short lateral branchlets. Fruit of pale yellow-brown to dull grey, winged seed contained in cones, 10-22 mm long and 11-15 mm long with valves well extended from the cone body.


Habitat:


Usually found growing with Slender Cypress-pine (
Callistris gracilis) in open woodlands on sandy rises in the north-west of Victoria but is reported to have moderate salinity tolerance. Also found extensively in western NSW and inland SA and WA.

RegionSalinity ClassWaterlogging Class
MalleeS0, S1, S2W0, W1, W2


Comments:


The names, Belah and Black Oak, have also been applied to
Casuarina cristata, with some confusion over the scientific names of the two species. Casuarina cristata is a tree of central to eastern New South Wales and south-east Queensland. Differs from Swamp Sheoak (Casuarina obesa) in that its reduced leaves (teeth) are generally less than 12/whorl and spreading or recurved and its branchlets are more or less covered in hairs. Produces a very dense wood suitable for fencing, fuel, construction and wood-turning.

Page top