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Casuarina equisetifolia
Also called Australian pine, Horsetail casuarina, She Oak, Beach She Oak, Coast She Oak, Australian Beefwood, Casuarine
In Singapore: Casuarina, Common Rhu, Common Ru, Horsetail Tree, Beach She-Oak, Whistling Pine, Aru, Southsea Ironwood, Mile Tree, Australian Pine, Cemara Laut, Horsetail Casuarina, She-oak, Ru, 木麻黄 (Native to Singapore, Least Concern)
Beach sheoak is a fast-growing, salt-tolerant tree with drooping, needle-like green branchlets, native to coasts across India, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and northern Australia. It is grown outdoors in warm tropical and subtropical coastal areas, where full sun and well-drained sandy soil are the keys to success.
Casuarina equisetifolia, commonly known as coastal she-oak, horsetail she-oak, ironwood, beach sheoak, beach casuarina, whistling tree or Australian pine is a species of flowering plant in the family Casuarinaceae and is native to the Western Pacific, Australia, New Guinea, Southeast Asia and India. It is a small to medium-sized, monoecious tree with scaly or furrowed bark on older specimens, drooping branchlets, the leaves reduced to scales in whorls of 7 or 8, the fruit 10–24 mm (0.4–0.9 in) long containing winged seeds (samaras) 6–8 mm (0.2–0.3 in) long.
Casuarina equisetifolia subsp. equisetifolia grows near the sea, behind beaches and near estuaries, sometimes on rocky headlands in Australia, New Guinea, Southeast Asia and India. The species is native to India and Bangladesh in South Asia; Myanmar, the Andaman Islands, Nicobar Islands, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Peninsular Malaysia, the Philippines, Borneo, Java and the Lesser Sunda Islands, islands in the South China Sea, Sulawesi and Sumatra in Southeast Asia; the Carolines, Fiji, the Marianas, the Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu in the Pacific Ocean; New Guinea; and New South Wales, the Northern Territory, and Queensland in Australia.
Besides its ornamental uses, Casuarina equisetifolia has also been explored for its potential in remediation of textile dye wastewater. The leaves were found to be useful as absorbent material for the removal of textile dyes such as reactive orange 16, rhodamine B, methylene blue, malachite green and methyl violet 2B. Similarly, the dried cone was also reported to be able to remove rhodamine B and methyl violet 2B. The bark was reported to be able to remove methylene blue. Even the seed was found to be useful in dye removal of neutral red and malachite green. The carbon derived from the cones of C. equisetifolia was found to be a good absorbent for landfill leachate, while another laboratory also reported good absorbency for copper ions from aqueous solution. Line planting of C. equisetifolia trees in coastal areas has been known to help control the force of the wind. In countries like India, it has been known as a suitable species for wasteland development.
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Casuarina equisetifolia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
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.
