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The C&suarinas 
.(With Roports on the Behavior of C. cunninghamiana. ) 
For a quarter of a century the Office of Foreign Seed and Plant 
Introduction has teen bringing species of Caauarina into this country. 
It 'f irBt seriously turned its attention. to these plants in 1898, when 
W. T. Swingle returned from France with the seeds of four Australian 
apecieB. While the Department of Agrioulture cannot claim the credit 
of introducing the kinds most commonly grown in the United States, it 
has brought in many lota of seeds, including a number of rare species, 
some of which eventually may become widely popular in this country . 
There is always a peculiar interest and romance centering about 
the Casuarinas. When we look upon their somber beauty, we are gaz- 
ing -- if we may except the conifers and their allies — on what are 
probably the oldest living flowering plants. There is something weird, 
and even suggestive of by-gone geologic ages in the appearance of these 
plants. They look like pines, yet they are not pines; they have what 
appear to be needles but are in reality branchlets functioning like 
leaves, while the true leaves are reduced to a sheath of joined teeth 
around each node. In the last-named characteristic, the Casuarinas 
resemble the Equisetums or horsetails. 
For windbreaks the Casuarinas are powerful and have the advantage 
of being evergreen; .they grow with great rapidity, live long, and in 
this country are almost wholly free from diseases and pests. For fuel 
they are often considered as good as, or better than, oak. Since the 
wood takes a, fine polish, its uses in .turnery and veneering are many. 
In contact with water it is very durable; it may be used for piles, 
posts, and especially for shingles. 
More or. less tannin is contained in the wood, bark, and branchlets, 
but until ohemical determinations are correlated with careful identifi- 
cation of the samples, the statistics can mean little. One tanner in 
Miami, Fla. , is now treating alligator hides with Caauarina extract. . 
The stringy branchlets, with their many close vascular bundles, 
contain fiber *uaed in Australia for packing and even for printing paper 
and millboard. . 
The bark is medicinally employed as an astringent .in cases of dys- 
entery and similar ailments. The branches and flower spikes are eaten 
eagerly by Australian cattle, despite the tannic acid, and in that country 
Casuarina is looked upon as one of the chief winter forages of the arid 
ranches. 
Still more interesting is the discovery, published in the Indian 
Forester, vol. 44, pp. 265-269, in 1918, by II. J. Narasimhan, that 
Casuarina equiseti folia, and presumably other species, bears on its roots 
nodules which are colonies of nitrofixing bacteria. 
