155 
No. 178. 
Casuarina equisetifolia, Forst., 
var. incana, Benth. 
Coast She-Oak. 
(Family CASUARINACE^E.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Casuarina. (See Part XIII, p. 74.) 
Botanical description. —Species, C. equisetifolia, Forst., Char. Gen., 103, t. 52 
H(1776). 
A tree attaining a large size, but so frequently cut that it is generally met with much smaller, 
the principal branches elongated and spreading or ascending, the smaller ones often 
pendulous, glabrous or tomentose when young. 
Whorls usually 7-merous, but the parts varying from 6 to 8. 
Sheath-teeth short and acute or sometimes fine-pointed on the persistent branches, the internodes 
rarely exceeding inch, the ribs rather prominent. 
Flowers dioecious, male spikes about | inch long, terminating slender deciduous branchlets, the 
sheaths of the spikes closely imbricate. 
Fruit-cones very shortly pedunculate on the persistent branches, globular, usually about b inch 
diameter, the valves protruding about 1 line, broadly ovate, obtuse, pubescent outside, 
without any or with a very obscure dorsal protuberance at the base. 
Var. incana, young shoots very tomentose. C. incana , A. Cunn. Herb. (B. FI. vi, 197.) 
The typical form having been so long described, and so widely diffused in the 
tropics, has been often figured. Forster’s figure lias been already quoted, and be, 
as be states, obtained the name from Rumpliius’ Herbarium Amboinense, 3, t. 57 
(1750), in which the Dutch artist has depicted the branchlets like plumes of horse-hair, 
indeed like tails. 
Lamarck’s Encyclopedic, pi. 746 fig. 2, may he referred to; the plate has also 
details based on Forster’s figure. 
Then we have Loddigcs’ Bot. Cabinet, t. 607, which is not good. Then there 
is Miq. Rev. Cas. t. 5, also t. 1, as C. excelsa (a garden variety). 
Modern drawings are given in Engler’s Nat. PJlanzenfamilien, iii, 1, p. 17, 
fig. 15, and Knuth’s Bluten-biologie, iii (1), fig. 30. 
The variety incana has only been once previously figured so far as I am 
aware. See Poisson, under Habitat. 
