Allocasuarina humilis

Location & distribution maps

Phylogeny & links to associated information

Wikipedia links:       Angiosperms > Eudicots > Rosids  > Fagales > Casuarinaceae > Allocasuarina  humilis 

Other links:     

Plant  information

Common name:               Dwarf sheoak 

Also, dwarf casuarina 

Conservation status:   unknown

Etymology:   

• The species name is the Latin adjective hǔmǐlǐs "on - " or "close to the ground" (hǔmus)

Flowers:                  

• It can be dioecius or monecious

• The reddish-brown male flower spikes are between 6 and 18 mm long 

Fruit:                         

• The warty cones are cylindrical, about 12 to 22 mm in length and 10 to 17 mm in diameter

Leaves:         

• As with other sheoaks, its foliage consists of slender green branchlets informally referred to as "needles" but more correctly termed cladodes

• The cladodes are segmented, and the true leaves are tiny teeth encircling each joint

Stem & branches:     

•  A many branched shrub, its branchlets ascend from larger branches and reach 12 cm in length

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A woody shrub 

• Unlike many sheoaks which grow into trees, it only reaches 20 cm to 2 m in height

Habitat:   

• It grows on sand, sand over laterite, gravel, or clay

Distribution:                  

•  Endemic to the south-west of Western Australia

• It is found across southwest Western Australia, from the Murchison River in the north, to the south coast, where it extends eastwards to Israelite Bay

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy

  • Originally described as Casuarina humilis by German naturalists Christoph Friedrich Otto and Albert Gottfried Dietrich in 1841 from a specimen cultivated in Berlin Botanical Gardens

  • It was transferred to the new genus Allocasuarina by botanist Lawrie Johnson in 1982

  •  A 2003 molecular study of the family Casuarinaceae showed the dwarf sheoak and the horned sheoak (A. thuyoides) to be sister taxa, and form a clade with A. thuyoides, A. microstachya, karri oak (A. decussata) and western sheoak (A. fraseriana), all from Western Australia

• Cultivation

  • It adapts readily to cultivation

  • Versatile, it tolerates a wide range of soils, including those with some alkalinity, and prefers a sunny aspect

  • Tolerant of some exposure to coastal conditions, it is also planted for erosion control and as a windbreak

  • Unlike many Australian native plants, it is relatively tolerant of phosphates to some degree in cultivation