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CASUARINA

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Originally appearing in Volume V05, Page 485 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CASUARINA , a genus of trees containing about 30 See also:

species, chiefly Australian, but a few Indo-Malayan. The See also:long See also:whip-like See also:green branches are longitudinally grooved, and See also:bear at the nodes whorls of small See also:scale-leaves, the shoots resembling those of Equisetum (See also:horse-tail). The See also:flowers are unisexual; the staminate are See also:borne in spikes, each See also:flower consisting of a central stamen which is surrounded by two scale-like perianth-leaves. The pistillate are borne in dense spherical heads; each flower stands in the axil of a bract and consists of two See also:united carpels flanked by a pair of bracteoles; the long styles hang out beyond the bracts, and the one-chambered ovary contains two ovules. In the See also:fruit the bracteoles See also:form two woody valves between which is a See also:nut; the aggregate of fruits resemble small cones. See also:Pollen is transferred by the See also:wind to the long styles. The pollen-See also:tube does not penetrate the ovule through the micropyle but enters at the opposite end—the chalaza. This See also:anomaly was 1 See also:Dicotyledons. Angiospermae- Porogamae(Monocotyledons. Chalazogamae (Casuarina). The names of the two subdivisions recall the manner of entrance of the pollen-tube. More See also:recent investigations, chiefly by Nawaschin and See also:Miss See also:Benson, on members of the orders Betulaceae, Fagaceae, Juglans and Ulmus, showed a recurrence in a greater or less degree of the various anomalies previously observed in Casuarina, and suggest that the See also:affinity of Casuarina is with these orders of Dicotyledons.

The See also:

wood is very hard, and several species are valuable See also:timber trees. From a fancied resemblance of the wood to that of the See also:oak these trees are known as " oaks," and the same species has different names in different parts such as " she-oak," " swamp-oak," "See also:shingle-oak," "See also:river-oak," "See also:iron-wood," " See also:beef-wood," &c. See J. H. See also:Maiden, Useful Native See also:Plants of See also:Australia (See also:London and See also:Sydney, 1889).

End of Article: CASUARINA

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