Thread: Lace sheoak

Beautiful stuff

YES Ironwood,

This is the nicest sheoak from WA, and most abundant ... even nicer when the "lace" pattern has birdeyes in it.
I have a few favourite casuarinas too but I'm not home to show you.

Euge

Originally Posted by Euge

YES Ironwood,

This is the nicest sheoak from WA, and most abundant ... even nicer when the "lace" pattern has birdeyes in it.
I have a few favourite casuarinas too but I'm not home to show you.

Euge

This is Tasmanian stuff. [emoji106]

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Sorry to Hijack your thread Jason, but just a pic of the Birdseye Lace that Euge was talking about , I`ve only ever found a small piece of this so it`s pretty rare.That Tassy Sheoak lace has some crazy grain.

Originally Posted by TasSculptor

This is Tasmanian stuff. [emoji106]...

So which species of S.O. do you have, TS?

I've seen very small patches of lace grain in our Eastern she-oak, Forest she-oak or Allocasuarina torulosa, whichever you prefer, so it's certainly not unique to the W.A. species, but I've seen an awful lot of She-oaks cut up (or split - we used it as fuel for the cook stove), & only come across a few tiny patches of lace figure, so it's far from common. The lace I've noticed was always around a site of injury (fire or insect damage), and once in a piece from a crotch that had partly split away at some point, then healed over, so it would seem to be a type of reaction tissue in these cases. I've only ever found enough for a small handle, for e.g., never anything like the large pieces that occur in W.A. Has anyone seen it in larger, 'usable' chunks in this species in Qld.??

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

So which species of S.O. do you have, TS?

I've seen very small patches of lace grain in our Eastern she-oak, Forest she-oak or Allocasuarina torulosa, whichever you prefer, so it's certainly not unique to the W.A. species, but I've seen an awful lot of She-oaks cut up (or split - we used it as fuel for the cook stove), & only come across a few tiny patches of lace figure, so it's far from common. The lace I've noticed was always around a site of injury (fire or insect damage), and once in a piece from a crotch that had partly split away at some point, then healed over, so it would seem to be a type of reaction tissue in these cases. I've only ever found enough for a small handle, for e.g., never anything like the large pieces that occur in W.A. Has anyone seen it in larger, 'usable' chunks in this species in Qld.??

Cheers,

I think this stuff is Littoralis. I don't know if its more prone to lace figure than other species. I seem to find it in one in 100 or so trees to some extent at least. This tree had it more than others ive found. I pick them by the skin under the bark. Large "pores" and swirls are the indicators to look for. [emoji106]

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Originally Posted by IanW

So which species of S.O. do you have, TS?

I've seen very small patches of lace grain in our Eastern she-oak, Forest she-oak or Allocasuarina torulosa, whichever you prefer, so it's certainly not unique to the W.A. species, but I've seen an awful lot of She-oaks cut up (or split - we used it as fuel for the cook stove), & only come across a few tiny patches of lace figure, so it's far from common. The lace I've noticed was always around a site of injury (fire or insect damage), and once in a piece from a crotch that had partly split away at some point, then healed over, so it would seem to be a type of reaction tissue in these cases. I've only ever found enough for a small handle, for e.g., never anything like the large pieces that occur in W.A. Has anyone seen it in larger, 'usable' chunks in this species in Qld.??

Not in Qld... but it's not unknown to find such pieces in Melbourne. A. torulosa (I think. Used to be C. Stricta?) was a popular street planting back in the 70s/80s or so and my Mum's place has them along the fence line as a privacy screen from a Scout Hall next-door. They don't grow very tall in the colder climes (hers are between 5-8m) and they work well as privacy screens... and at choking out rain gutters, fish-ponds, etc. Also the 'nuts' are lovely little beggars to step on bare-foot first thing in the morning. Much like lego.

Anyways, because of this usage it's common to see them hacked, pruned & docked by council workers with black thumbs and yeah... it seems to be where they're stressed that the lace seems to form. Somewhere around here I should have S&P mills, a cheese platter and a few other pieces I've salvaged from council loppings over the years.

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

Not in Qld... but it's not unknown to find such pieces in Melbourne. A. torulosa (I think. Used to be C. Stricta?) was a popular street planting back in the 70s/80s ........

To clarify names ....

Both Allocasuarina torulosa and Allocasuarina verticilata are different trees but both are common ornamental trees grown in the cooler non-tropical southern states. Casuarina stricta is now Allocasuarina verticillata, commonly known as drooping she-oak or drooping sheoak,

A. torulosa is popular too, with what I call a book-leaf bark.

Both have lovely beautiful woods for not just turners, but anyone who loves wood with bold rays.

Euge

Skew, Allocasuarina verticillata used to be Casuarina stricta, I think Forest she-oak has always been torulosa. The natural range of A. torulosa only extends as far as southern NSW, but of course that doesn't prevent it from being planted well out of its range. On good sites, torulosa makes a sizeable tree, with boles in excess of 700mm (but rarely more than 1200-1500 before major branching) where I grew up.

Your street tree my well be stricta, if you had pics of foliage & fruits we could take a guess. However, the casuarina I noticed widely planted as a street tree down your way was either C. glauca or a hybrid. It's incredibly tolerant of tough conditions including saline soils, and it produces a mat of shallow roots that sucker (like no other casuarina I know of!). Your description of it choking drains fits..

It has a saving grace - the wood is quite a bit less dense than all the other casuarinas I've played with, & very easy to turn, but still plenty tough. It makes excellent chair legs & spindles (the pale wood looks a lot like northern hemisphere Beech until you look closely).

When they cleared the site for the new runway at Brisbane airport a few years ago, they knocked down several hundred acres of them. These trees were planted sometime in the 60s or 70s and were about 15-20M or so high, with trunks around 3-400mm diameter. They just knocked 'em down by the thousands, windrowed & burnt them. . There was no way a mere mortal like me could get their hands on a single stick, but how I longed to sneak in with a saw (the non-motorised sort, of course) in the dead of night!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

However, the casuarina I noticed widely planted as a street tree down your way was either C. glauca or a hybrid. It's incredibly tolerant of tough conditions including saline soils, and it produces a mat of shallow roots that sucker (like no other casuarina I know of!). Your description of it choking drains fits.

I don't think they're C. glauca... I can't say I recall any suckers at all around them. The problem with drains... and roof gutters and fish-ponds etc., isn't related to root mats but, rather, the sheer number of needles/foliage they dropped.

At times it'd be as thick as any mat laid down by P. radiatas.

They may very well be A. verticillata; I can't say that I recall their exact appearance. But I've always known them as either Forest She-Oak or Rose She-Oak, depending on who I've been talking to.

Although I'm pretty sure that my Grand-dad used to call them Baker's Oak? Then again, he was an old school sawyer whose nomenclature was very different to what I personally use nowadays... and yet still has a strong influence.

Different suburbs appear to have different varieties, I guess it's a matter of what the councils and/or property developers had cheap. ready access to at the time.

Either way, as with most casuarinas (using the term very liberally here!) it's a lovely timber to work with, and every now'n'again it's a spectacular timber.

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

.... They may very well be A. verticillata; I can't say that I recall their exact appearance. But I've always known them as either Forest She-Oak or Rose She-Oak, depending on who I've been talking to. .. Although I'm pretty sure that my Grand-dad used to call them Baker's Oak? ....

Hi Skew,

Not wishing to be pedantic but … A. verticilata was Casuarina stricta (not A. torulosa). A torulosa is indeed called "Rose Sheoak" and "Forest Oak" because it grows in coastal forests and is milled occasionally. Unusual for a casuarina to grow in rainforest as most species like drier conditions.

"Bakers oak" is another term because sheoak wood was favoured by bakers in their ovens because of the heat they emitted. So ovens required less feeding of fuel.

Cheers, Euge

Oh, pedant away! When one uses genus & species to identify something, it ought to be a correct ID.

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

Oh, pedant away! When one uses genus & species to identify something, it ought to be a correct ID.

Agreed Skew, I'm a staunch advocate for using 'proper' names where we can, I've seen far too much confusion caused by vernacular names. However, it ain't always easy! Having the key features like flowers & fruits will greatly help a person with botanical training to make an accurate id, but on these pages it's more often someone showing a (not terribly clear) pic of a lump of wood & wanting to know what it is.

If you are skilled in wood anatomy & have a sample to examine, you can do pretty well, but the emphasis is on 'skilled'! I'm reasonably comfortable with microscopes and mammalian tissues, having spent 45 years looking at them every day, so I thought I'd be able to use the pics in Morris Lake's rainforest trees book to great advantage. But wood is just far too different a material from what I'm used to, & I could make no headway at all (I guess that old saying about cobblers sticking to their lasts holds true.... ).

I suppose our most common reason for accurate id is so we can get more of something we've found particularly attractive or useful, or a match to finish a project. But wood is such a variable thing that even when you get the same species, the wood may be nothing like the bit that prompted the search, which can be disappointing to infuriating at times.

Speaking of disappointment, quite a few years ago now, Cliff Rogers gave me a chunk of 'Dead Finish' (which is a name applied to at least 4 different genera of trees that I'm aware of!). It was one of the most spectacular woods I've ever encountered - a beast to work, but worth all the sweat & tears when you got there: cutting g_DF.jpg

Anyway, knowing where it came from made it easy to pin down the species in this case (Archidendropsis basaltica). But although I've managed to get my hands on other bits over the ensuing years, none has been like the bit Cliff gave me - some have been nice enough, and I'd have been very happy with them if I hadn't had that original bit first! DF mortise Gs.jpg DF mortise Gs a.jpg

Nice, but not as striking as the bit shown above. I guess that's one of the things that makes wood special - always that chance of a 'discovery'...
Cheers,