Plants
Other Trees
Sighting 4249075

Casuarina glauca

Swamp She-oak at Tuross Head, NSW

Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
Casuarina glauca at Tuross Head, NSW - 26 Jan 2020
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Identification history

Unidentified 29 Jan 2020 HelenCross

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User's notes

Casuarinas originating in tree ferns growing around host casuarina??

4 comments

JackieMiles wrote:
   31 Jan 2020
Hi Helen, That's pretty weird, but your explanation seems plausible, that there has been an elkhorn plant growing on a casuarina trunk in which another casuarina has germinated and grown, then the elkhorn died and rotted away, leaving a knot of casuarina roots attached to the first tree. Was the top of the smaller stem alive or dead? Hard to see how it would be obtaining any nutrients with its roots wrapped around the larger casuarina trunk like that, so I'm assuming it would have died when its supporting fern did.
HelenCross wrote:
   31 Jan 2020
It is very strange Jackie and I'm pretty sure some of them were still alive. I've just uploaded a cropped photo to this record which actually shows a live elkhorn and live casuarina needles on the growth.
JackieMiles wrote:
   31 Jan 2020
Yep, well a couple of live elkhorn leaves anyway. It looks like the bulk of it has died. Quite a few plants do get started on this sort of material that traps nutrients (pinkwood trees on tree fern trunks for example) but they usually rely on getting some roots down to the ground eventually.
HelenCross wrote:
   31 Jan 2020
When I'm next down in Tuross I'll suss it out some more!

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Location information

Sighting information

Additional information

  • 1 metre to 5 metres Plant height

Species information

  • Casuarina glauca Scientific name
  • Swamp She-oak Common name
  • Not Sensitive
  • Local native
  • Non-invasive or negligible
  • Up to 72.9m Recorded at altitude
  • Machine learning
  • In flower

Record quality

  • Images or audio
  • More than one media file
  • Verified by an expert moderator
  • Nearby sighting(s) of same species
  • GPS evidence of location
  • Description
  • Additional attributes
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