Casuarina, a peculiar genus of Amentaceæ, forming the sub-order Casuarineæ, of which the position was long problematical, and to which some still give ordinal rank. Of the 30 species, the great majority are restricted to Australia and the adjacent islands. C. equisetifolia, the Swamp
With male and female flowers, the former in catkins at the end of the shoots, the latter (a) crowded in cone-like heads. At b, note single female flower, and at c, a group of male flowers. A section of the fluted stem, with reduced leaves, is represented at d.
Oak of Australia, or Iron-wood of early voyagers to the South Sea Islands, has, however, a more extended range. Some of them are large trees, producing timber of excellent quality, hard and heavy, the Beef-wood of the Australian colonists, so called from the resemblance in colour to raw beef. C. quadrivalvis is the She Oak of New South Wales, and C. torulosa the Forest Oak of Queensland. Thousands of acres of what were sand-dunes on the coast of Chengalpat (Madras) are now occupied by plantations of casuarinas. Cassowary Tree is a popular generic name of the Casuarineæ. Some of the species are scrubby bushes, and all of them have a very peculiar appearance, their branches being long, slender, wiry, drooping, green, jointed, with very small scale-like sheaths instead of leaves. They thus curiously resemble arborescent Equisetaceæ.