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Allocasuarina portuensis, commonly known as Nielsen Park she-oak, is a species of flowering plant in the family Casuarinaceae and is endemic to a restricted part of the Sydney region in eastern New South Wales. It is a slender, dioecious shrub with branchlets up to 270 mm (11 in) long, the leaves reduced to scales in whorls of seven or eight, the fruiting cones 12–15 mm (0.5–0.6 in) long containing winged seeds (samaras) 4–5 mm (0.16–0.20 in) long.
At the time of its discovery, only two male and six female plants were known, at six locations in the south-eastern part of Nielsen Park. It is likely that the species previously had a wider distribution, since the vegetation of Nielsen Park at the time of European settlement was widespread on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, but has since been extensively cleared. At the time of its discovery, the species was growing in tall, closed woodland with Port Jackson fig (Ficus rubiginosa), smooth-barked apple (Angophora costata), blueberry ash (Elaeocarpus reticulatus) and cheese tree (Glochidion ferdinandi) in the canopy, and an understorey including Pittosporum revolutum, Kunzea ambigua and Monotoca elliptica. The original habitat was degraded by weeds, such as asparagus "fern" (Protasparagus densiflorus), wandering Jew (Tradescantia albiflora) and Lantana camara. The original vegetation may have been more sclerophyllous, the absence of recent wildfire allowing the presence of more mesophyllic species, such as Glochidion ferdinandi and Pittosporum revolutum.
Allocasuarina acuaria · Allocasuarina acutivalvis · Allocasuarina anfractuosa · Allocasuarina brachystachya · Allocasuarina campestris · Allocasuarina corniculata · Allocasuarina crassa · Desert oak · Karri Oak · Dwarf Heath Casuarina · Allocasuarina dielsiana · Allocasuarina diminuta
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Allocasuarina portuensis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
