Thread: Australian Pine?

Snipped from Wiki....

C. equisetifolia is a common tropical seashore tree known as Common Ironwood, Beefwood, Bull-oak, or Whistling-pine, and is often planted as a windbreak. The wood of this tree is used commercially for shingles or fencing, and is said to make excellent, hot burning firewood.

You see it around beach fronts everywhere in Queensland and the far north coast of NSW. And probably other places I've never noticed.

I've never see any big examples. I imagine it would turn well. I can confirm that it makes truly excellent firewood.

Lots of it around here Luke, but it is quite bland in colour. I far prefer forest sheoak.
Rgds,
Crocy.

Thanks for speaking in terms of proper names which are understood around the world.
Old Croc = what is the proper name for Forest Sheoak?

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

Thanks for speaking in terms of proper names which are understood around the world.
Old Croc = what is the proper name for Forest Sheoak?

Allocasuarina torulosa. Commonly just called Sheoak on the East Coast.

Originally Posted by Old Croc

Lots of it around here Luke, but it is quite bland in colour. I far prefer forest sheoak.
Rgds,
Crocy.

Yeah, I had a feeling that the reason I hadn't heard much about it was because the timber wasn't much to write home about. I admit that I like Forest Sheoak about as well as any of the Sheoaks, so I guess there's no reason to cut up a lesser tree when there's plenty of great stuff otherwise.

From the description it seems to be the same tree that grows abundantly in the Hawkesbury area along the river and its tributaries, a good example is the reserve at the Grose River and Poohs Lagoon at Richmond. It is locally known as a river oak, I could be wrong and stand correcting but it certainly seems to be the same tree.

Came across references in history articles of the Hornsby and Hawkesbury area regarding the cutting of local she oaks for shingles in the early to mid 1800s when researching a friends family history. No mention of scientific name though.

All the sheoaks were popular for shingles, up here they used the coast shoak, inland of here they used the forest shoak or river sheoak depending on what they could get locally. They all split really well with a froe.

Originally Posted by rwbuild

From the description it seems to be the same tree that grows abundantly in the Hawkesbury area along the river and its tributaries, a good example is the reserve at the Grose River and Poohs Lagoon at Richmond. It is locally known as a river oak, I could be wrong and stand correcting but it certainly seems to be the same tree.

I suspect you are talking about A. cunninghamiana, rw. It's the largest of our casuarinas, and grows on most watercourses east of the divide. That is, where it hasn't been crowded out by Camphor laurel & Celtis! As you get closer to the coast & a more saline water table, it's replaced by A. glauca ('swamp oak'), smaller than cunninghamiana, but the two can hybridise where they meet. I think glauca is what has been planted in the swampy area beside the Brisbane airport - about a million of them!

In my experience, the wood of 'River oak' (cunninghamiana) can be very similar to 'she-oak' (torulosa), though I've not had any with quite the rich, deep colour of she-oak: SO.jpg Wood from younger river oak is much paler and easier to work, while that from old trees is deep brown, hard as nails, splits like hell, and is very hard to dry in thicker sections. It often gets a black heart stain, which I'm moderately sure is caused by a fungus (like the one that gives you black-heart Sassafras). This can make for spectacular 'ebonised' wood that takes a rich polish, but it's exceptionally difficult to dry without having it crack to pen-sized slivers. I've managed to get larger, sound pieces from close to the really black stuff, which polishes up ok, but isn't jet black: RO.jpg

Equisetifolia is a small tree round these parts, and you'd be hard-put to get sizable pieces from one - never had any bits big enough to do anything useful with, myself. Some pics on the interweb show it as a small/medium-sized tree but you have to be very wary when identifying any of the casaurinas; quite apart from the technical challenge of species identification, many of them hybridise readily, it seems, so you end up with things that are betwixt & between. The trees that are commonly planted as street trees round here look a lot like A. cunninghamiana, but I've read somewhere they are hybrids (can't find where I saw that, so can't vouch for it). I've scored a few small (<300mm diameter) trees that blew over or had to be removed. The wood of these is almost white, and not terribly exciting to the eye, but easy to work & excellent for making wood screws - threads beautifully: street oak.jpg

I think 'Hairy oak' (A. inophloia) is one of the nicest of the bunch, and very good to work with - planes and turns very easily, but is beloved of wood-munching critters that seem to know exactly the right spots to hollow-out so you can rarely get large, sound pieces! Hairy oak.jpg

For tactile qualities, Bull oak (A. leuhmanii) is hard to beat. Some of it can be a bit coarse, with crumbly rays that want to pick out under the sharpest tools, but some bits turn superbly, and take a polish like few other woods I know: BO.jpg

Of course, there is 'lace' she-oak, too, which is just 'defective' A. faraseriana: Halfback handle lace she-oak.jpg
On average, it's a bit softer & less dense than torulosa, but otherwise very similar, in my experience. Pity the WA folks have selfishly kept the lacy stuff to themselves - I've found a few small pieces of lace-like figure in torulosa, near branch knots for e.g., but it's not really the same pattern, & never more than about a handle's worth: Mini skews.jpg

It's a wonderful genus, Luke, and much under-valued here in its home - pity that the one that they took over there is amongst the blandest of them all.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

pity that the one that they took over there is amongst the blandest of them all.....

My thoughts exactly. Even more of a pity that they just call it "pine"!

hi all, I'm wondering if the american fellow is talkin about Australian native pine of which there a number of varieties. The common one is grown commercially in NSW and used for building. Hard, Brittle and termite resistant. Aus Callitris_glaucophylla is in fact a conifer and grows in the murraylands and north of there

These are some pieces I've milled.
Native Pine Callitris_glaucophylla30-08-13 (3).jpg

Tim,

I was able to confirm with my friend that it's She Oak.

I am aware of a lot of the native "Pine" trees, and I rattled a bunch off to him when we were trying to determine which tree it was. Huon, Cypress, Bunya, Hoop, King Billy, Pencil, etc, etc. None of them hit home.

And also, correct me if I'm wrong, but none of the Australian conifers are actually Pines at all (genus Pinus), right? I know that radiata is grown there, but it's introduced. Everything else is Auracaria, Athrotaxis, Lagarostrobos, Callitris, etc. to my knowledge.

Are there any true pines endemic to the Southern Hemisphere at all?

I should google this...

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

......Are there any true pines endemic to the Southern Hemisphere at all? ......

Only just, Luke.

Botanically speaking, I think you would be safe in saying the Pine family is pretty much a northern hemisphere group.

However, there is a goodly number of gymnosperms south of the equator, including lots of 'primitive' types, some of which you mentioned. In fact, there is far more biological variety down this side than on your side of the equator - we are coming to realise that Gondwana was the source of much of the current (land) plant & animal life on the planet..

People use the term 'pine' very loosely. Strictly speaking, Pines are a genus within the family pinaceae, which includes (true) cedars, firs, hemlocks, larches, pines and spruces. These are all essentially northern hemisphere trees. The closest we have to the pines are members of the cupressaceae, another very large family, and also mostly northern hemisphere, but this is where our "Cypress" (Callitris spp) belongs, so for once, the common name is pretty close. What are called 'cedars' (they aren't botanically) in North America (Thuja spp), and Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) also belong in this group.

The she-oaks are not even distantly related to pines, they are true flowering plants. What look like 'needles' are actually branchlets, and what remains of their leaves are the tiny nubs that form circles at regular intervals around the 'needles'. The 'cones' are woody fruits containing the seeds, which are not 'naked' like pine seeds are.

The gymnosperms are often lumped as 'softwoods' and the angiosperms as 'hardwoods'. This is a useful way to divide them in some areas, where one lot does generally have soft woods & the other hard, but it falls down on a global scale - balsa (a hardwood) is not quite in the same janka group as Callitris or Tamarack (both softwoods), is it? Where I grew up, 'softwoods' were rainforest trees and 'hardwoods' the ones from the Eucalypt forests - again, a useful local distinction, but it doesn't travel well.

It can all be very confusing, and even more confusion has been added to the mix by inappropriate application of common names. "Cypress pine" is something of an oxymoron, and calling Toona (a hardwood in the same family as Mahogany) "cedar" ???????

Cheers,