Casuarina cristata


Casuarina cristata is an Australian tree of the sheoak family Casuarinaceae known as belah. It is native to a band across inland eastern Australia.

Taxonomy

The Dutch botanist Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel described the belah in 1848, and it still bears its original name. It is called Muurrgu or Murrgu in the Yuwaalaraay dialect of the Gamilaraay language around Walgett in northwestern New South Wales. Belah is an aboriginal name; other common names include scaly-barked casuarina, scrub she-oak, billa, ngaree, bulloak and swamp oak.

Description

Belah grows as a tree reaching in height and has a
DBH of. The tree has a dark greyish brown scaly bark, and its pendulous branches having a weeping habit. The true leaves are tiny scales along the branchlets.

Distribution and habitat

The range is from Clermont in central Queensland south through to Temora in southern New South Wales. It is an important component of the endangered Brigalow ecological community of inland New South Wales and Queensland. Here it is found as a dominant tree with brigalow, black gidyea, bimble box, Dawson River blackbutt, E. pilligaensis and the smaller trees such as wilga and false sandalwood in open forest over mainly Cenozoic clay plains. Other plants it grows with include bonaree, sugarwood and nelia. On limestone-based soils, it may have a dense understory composed of pearl bluebush or black bluebush

Ecology

Belah can reproduce by suckering from its root system, and clonal stands have been recorded. Seedlings only appear after periods of high rainfall.