Allocasuarina thuyoides explained

Allocasuarina thuyoides, commonly known as horned sheoak, is a species of flowering plant in the family Casuarinaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is monoecious or dioecious shrub that has its leaves reduced to scales in whorls of five or six, the mature fruiting cones long containing winged seeds usually long.

Description

Allocasuarina thuyoides is a monoecious or dioecious, intricately-branched shrub that typically grows to a height of . Its branchlets are up to long, the leaves reduced to erect, scale-like teeth long, arranged in whorls of five or six around the needle-like branchlets. The sections of branchlet between the leaf whorls are mostly long, wide. Male flowers are arranged in whorls of up to four long on the ends of branchlets, the anthers long. Female cones are on slender peduncles long, the mature cones shortly cylindrical to spherical, long and in diameter containing winged seeds long.[1]

Taxonomy

This sheoak was first formally described in 1845 by Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel who gave it the name Casuarina thuyoides in Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae.[2] [3] It was reclassified in 1982 as Allocasuarina thuyoides by Lawrie Johnson in the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.[4] The specific epithet (thuyoides) means "Thuja-like".[5]

Distribution and habitat

Allocasuarina thuyoides is widely distributed in the south-west of Western Australia, occurring from the Murchison River south to Albany and east to Esperance, where it grows in heath on laterite and sandplains.

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Allocasuarina thuyoides . Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment: Canberra . 15 August 2023.
  2. Web site: Casuarina thuyoides. APNI. 15 August 2023.
  3. Book: Miquel . Friedrich A.W. . Lehmann . Johann G.C. . Plantae Preissianae . 1 . 1845 . Sumptibus Meissneri . Hamburg . 641–642 . 15 August 2023.
  4. Web site: Allocasuarina thuyoides. APNI. 22 June 2023.
  5. Book: Sharr . Francis Aubi . George . Alex . Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings . 2019 . Four Gables Press . Kardinya, WA . 9780958034180 . 324 . 3rd.