''Allocasuarina glareicola'' is a species of flowering plant in the family

Casuarinaceae The Casuarinaceae are a family of dicotyledonous flowering plants placed in the order Fagales, consisting of four genera and 91 species of trees and shrubs native to eastern Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, Malesia, Papuasia, and the Pacifi ...

and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to a restricted part of New South Wales. It is an erect,

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

monoecious Monoecy (; adj. monoecious ) is a sexual system in seed plants where separate male and female cones or flowers are present on the same plant. It is a monomorphic sexual system alongside gynomonoecy, andromonoecy and trimonoecy. Monoecy is conne ...

shrub that has branchlets up to long, the leaves reduced to scales in

whorls A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral ...

of five to seven, the fruiting cones long containing winged seeds (samaras) long.

Description

''Allocasuarina glareicola'' is an erect, often poorly developed, dioecious or monoecious shrub that typically grows to a height of . Its branchlets are more or less erect, up to long, the leaves reduced to erect, scale-like teeth long, arranged in whorls of five to seven around the branchlets. The sections of branchlet between the leaf whorls (the "articles") are long and wide. Male flowers are arranged like a string of beads, in spikes long, with about 5 whorls per centimetre (per 0.39 in.), the

anthers The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filam ...

long. Female cones are cylindrical, on a peduncle long, the mature cones long and in diameter, the samaras brown and long.

Taxonomy

''Allocasuarina glareicola'' was first described in 1989 by

Lawrie Johnson Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, FAA, (26 June 1925 – 1 August 1997) known as Lawrie Johnson, was an Australian Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic botany, botanist. He worked at the Royal Botanic Garden ...

in ''

Flora of Australia The flora of Australia comprises a vast assemblage of plant species estimated to over 30,000 vascular and 14,000 non-vascular plants, 250,000 species of fungi and over 3,000 lichens. The flora has strong affinities with the flora of Gondwana, ...

''. The specific epithet, (''glareicola'') means "gravel-dweller".

Distribution and habitat

This she-oak grows in open forest on lateritic soil, and is restricted to a range of about in and around the

Castlereagh Nature Reserve The Castlereagh Nature Reserve is a protected nature reserve located in the western suburbs of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. The reserve is situated west of the central business district, approximately north-east of and located nea ...

Ecology

This species resprouts from a

lignotuber A lignotuber is a woody swelling of the root crown possessed by some plants as a protection against destruction of the plant stem, such as by fire. Other woody plants may develop basal burls as a similar survival strategy, often as a response t ...

after fire and spreads by root suckers, so that many stems may be of a single individual plant.

Conservation status

''Allocasuarina glareicola'' is listed as "Endangered" under the Australian Government ''

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cultu ...

'' and the New South Wales Government '' Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016''. The main threats to the species include rubbish dumping, inappropriate fire regimes, weed invasion and habitat loss.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15375564 glareicola Fagales of Australia Flora of New South Wales Plants described in 1989 Taxa named by Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson