Allocasuarina torulosa or littoralis?

[Elmer]

Is there an easy way to tell A. torulosa and litoralis apart. I have one, collected about 4-5yrs ago from a private bush property where both are endemic. It never gets the rosy colour that is listed as a characteristic, however I also have a group planting of torulosa with one amongst them that also never goes rosy. Attached is pics of foliage and bark and one of the green torulosa in the group.

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Thanks in advance, Elmer.

[shibui]

Casuarinas are differentiated by the number of leaves. You will probably need a magnifying glass to count them though. Cas leaves are tiny in whorls around each joint in the stem. Take a green stem and pull until it breaks at the node then take a close look at the end of the lower piece. It will have tiny serrations around the end - that's the leaves. I posted some photos to show this on one of Rory's threads viewtopic.php?f=56&t=24470&hilit=+casuarina+leaves
C. littoralis has 6-8 leaves at each node. C. torulosa should have 4 leaves at each joint.

[Elmer]

Thanks shibui, with a jewelers loop in hand it was still not an easy task, those leaves ARE tiny but managed a count eventually... 8 leaves makes it littoralis

[TimS]

Shibui beat me to it and explained it better than i could anyway. The number of serrations is the best way to be certain of variety as things like bark texture can be misleading especially with older trees.

[Joel]

The second photo appears to be of A. littoralis and the third appears to be A. torulosa. Are these photos of different individuals?

Allocasuarina torulosa also has four ridges on each article. The article is the section of stem between each of the nodes with the "teeth". The result of these four ridges and the slight curvature of each stem is that you can hold a curved section of stem approximately 15cm in length between thumb and forefinger and apply some pressure whilst slowly "rolling" it. If it is A. torulosa you will notice a "click" at each ridge and the curvature will rotate 90 degrees. 4 clicks and the the stem will be in the same position as where it started i.e. if you hold it and the stem is curving to the left, rotate four clicks and it will be pointing to the left again. Two clicks will be right. 1 and 3 clicks will be up or down depending on which direction you roll it.

Let me know if I didn't explain this well enough. I find it the quickest and most reliable way to differentiate A. torulosa from any other species without the need for a loup.

[Elmer]

Joel, I probably didn't explain it very well, the first and second photos are the tree I was trying to ID and yes from the leaf count is A. littoralis. The third photo is part of a forest of A. torulosa with one tree that never gets the rosy colour of the rest, rather annoying for consistency but also enjoyable for it's difference in a world of similarities.

As for your explanation on an easy way to differentiate, you explained it very well however I am now confused and perplexed but neither are unusual for me

Elmer