Casuarina nana flowers

[Rory]

For those interested.... I picked up a load of Casuarina nana seedlings from a nursery outside Canberra.

This is my favourite project so far because of the short internodes and short needles.
Imagine growing an old casuarina tree that doesn't require needle plucking for a show!

I purchased all the seedlings the grower had left. They are still babies, only about 1/2 cm thick and I wouldn't say they grow at the same rate as their bigger cousins, but slow and steady. I was surprised to see them flowering so soon. Beautiful.
I trialled 2 separate batches, one in a heavy mix and another in a lighter mix. They grow well in either, so its looking good so far.

I am very excited and looking forward to getting some fantastic stock trees from this species.

Here is a photo of the tiny flowers. The photo is heavily zoomed in a lot to try and show the detail.
Now imagine a big ol' casuarina bonsai tree with tiny needles and covered in these beautiful flowers.

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[Redsonic]

Love your posts on Casuarina, Rory. I am learning heaps. I gather these are the male flowers?
I had never heard of Allocasuarina nana, and assumed it was a dwarf cultivar of a common casuarina species, but a quick google shows it is a species in its own right.
Now I want one (or 2, or...)
Please keep us posted on how these go.

[GavinG]

Rory, thanks for your comprehensive and focussed notes on Casuarinas - they are all very valuable.

I have tried a number of C. nana - the short needles are attractive, and some had excellent swirling growth habits, slowly downwards - very variable in that regard. If you see them in gardens they're a bit disappointing - they don't thicken particularly, the bark is smooth, they're weedy and open. They also seem to be a bit prone to root rot. ACas. littoralis and torulosa have been better value for me. C. nana seems at best only suited to quite small, possibly with some eccentric curves going downwards - I haven't stopped trying...

I also think we can get more out of those astonishing Cas trunks than we do, although it's going to take longer - something along these lines:

IMG_0889_2_2.jpg

Gavin

[Rory]

Hi Gavin,

Thanks for the kind words.
Yes, if that is the case then they may be similar in growth to Casuarina distyla and others of the shrub variety.
In nature they develop shruby thin trunks. Hopefully constant trunk chopping will rectify this, but time will tell.
Of those I am growing, there are a few that exhibit more of a swirling motion of growth, but most are primarily prostrate.

I will certainly take a look out and be careful about root rot in that case. I haven't done a repot yet since working the roots initially at purchase.

So far most of them seem to have that same taper as any other Casuarina but it may be just initial juvenile growth.

How long did you grow them for Gavin?

[shibui]

I'm also surprised to see them flowering so young.
I was also attracted to the shapes of wild trees but the ones I have growing have been very disappointing. Really slow to thicken and don't seem to ramify very much but maybe more pruning will help that. I've grown them for about 6 years and they are still only pencil thick. Other species have reached 5cm bases in the same time and are developing some foliage pads now.
Maybe it is the root rot Gavin is talking about, maybe they just don't like hard root pruning but they have been very slow to recover after repotting.

Red. those are indeed male flowers. Casuarinas usually have separate male trees and female trees. Female flowers are cut little round red powder puffs that occur further back on the branches of female trees in winter.

[Rory]

I'm also surprised to see them flowering so young.
I was also attracted to the shapes of wild trees but the ones I have growing have been very disappointing. Really slow to thicken and don't seem to ramify very much but maybe more pruning will help that. I've grown them for about 6 years and they are still only pencil thick. Other species have reached 5cm bases in the same time and are developing some foliage pads now.
Maybe it is the root rot Gavin is talking about, maybe they just don't like hard root pruning but they have been very slow to recover after repotting.

Red. those are indeed male flowers. Casuarinas usually have separate male trees and female trees. Female flowers are cut little round red powder puffs that occur further back on the branches of female trees in winter.

6 years and only pencil thickness!!!!
Omg. That's bad! That would certainly be a waste of time. These guys have grown to pencil thickness in less than a year. They started as needle thin saplings and have grown 6 times faster than yours. Maybe there a differences in the genetic variation or it's just a more suitable climate here.

[GavinG]

Hi Rory, maybe it's the magical charm of your personality... Mine certainly grow slow and weedy, as Neal's do, maximum three years before they Left the Building. Climate is quite likely a factor. Best of luck. I'm still trying, there's something fine and delicate and idiomatic in there, I just have to nut it out.

WPedia says it's native in the mountains and cliffs from Mudgee south. I might try a really sandy mix. No more Mr. Nice Guy!! (hollow laugh)

Gavin

[squizzy]

I seen some awesom examples of this species ( I think) on the walkway out to the 3 sisters at Leura. I said to Steven how they looked an amazing species specifically good for bonsai. I am keen to see how they go Rory. I have tried to get seed here at harvest seeds terry hills but haven't had any luck yet.

Squizzy

[Rory]

Hi Rory, maybe it's the magical charm of your personality... Mine certainly grow slow and weedy, as Neal's do, maximum three years before they Left the Building. Climate is quite likely a factor. Best of luck. I'm still trying, there's something fine and delicate and idiomatic in there, I just have to nut it out.

WPedia says it's native in the mountains and cliffs from Mudgee south. I might try a really sandy mix. No more Mr. Nice Guy!! (hollow laugh)

Gavin

Hi Gav....

Do you mean 3 years and then they died? Wooaw! Maybe its the super cold that slows them down? That really sucks.
I have no idea where the nurseryman that I purchased them from had sourced the seed. They must be simply a better genetic variation. I can't imagine that you'd see such a massive difference in the climate doing that? The more that I think about it... after reading botanical notes on Casuarina over the years I do recall certain species having bad tolerance to extreme frozen temperatures. I don't think the nurseryman grew these nana stock for very long before they would constantly get sold, so maybe the sub zero temperatures significantly affect its health over the long term. You've got me interested.

Or..... Perhaps my stock is not Casuarina nana??? Its not like I've never purchased incorrectly identified material before

They get watered usually every 48 hours, but over winter I would only water them about once every 3 days. To be honest I've not done a thing with them nor really bothered to see if they were in trouble. I might repot them in November just to check the roots because now you've got me wondering.

Hugh Grant had dug up a few fantastic specimens a while back but they didn't survive the transplant. Some of them had a base of an inch or two by memory.
That was what actually started me off to try and grow the species.

One really annoying thing about young Casuarina, and I'm talking about even hardy varieties like cunninghamiana and glauca for example, is that sometimes if you chop the trunk really low (mainly during colder weather)...and then chop the trunk again within a few months, the whole damn thing can die I've lost young specimens from this. The lesson I learnt was not to 'double-dip' on trunk chopping. Cut once and leave it alone for maybe 2 seasons.

I seen some awesom examples of this species ( I think) on the walkway out to the 3 sisters at Leura. I said to Steven how they looked an amazing species specifically good for bonsai. I am keen to see how they go Rory. I have tried to get seed here at harvest seeds terry hills but haven't had any luck yet.

Squizzy

Gosh I'd love to see them from that area. Did you take pics?

I can't be bothered with growing seed (its a growers flaw I know), so I rang a tonne of nurseries last year and could only find 2 nurseries within a 4-hour drive that sold seedlings of them.

[shibui]

Perhaps my stock is not Casuarina nana??? Its not like I've never purchased incorrectly identified material before

Can you do a leaf count for us please Rory. I think that should provide enough to ID the species.

[Rory]

Perhaps my stock is not Casuarina nana??? Its not like I've never purchased incorrectly identified material before

Can you do a leaf count for us please Rory. I think that should provide enough to ID the species.

Okay, i'm not being smart but what would be the best way to do that?

I assume to try to magnify it with my iPhone camera maybe and do a cross section cut at a join?

[shibui]

Pull the stem. It should break cleanly at the joint.

casuarina leaves 1.JPG

Then count the number of leaves around the node.

casuarina leaves 4.JPG

Do a couple if you can to get a more accurate count. Costermans says C. nana usually 5 in whorls 3-6mm apart.

[Rory]

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Hi Neil....

Here are the pics. My eyesight isn't what it used to be.
I don't have macro settings on my phone so this is the best I could get.

[shibui]

My eyes are also old and weary. Even with the reading glasses on I sometimes have trouble.
added to that your phone has focussed on your fingers rather than the smaller leaf so I can't make out any detail.
A magnifying glass or something similar should let you do a leaf count.

While checking Costermans I discovered that C. nana comes from NSW and just into East Gippsland which means I've been mistaken in the ID of my plants which were sourced from Wilson's Prom and Cranbourne. Appears that the dwarf Casuarina down here is C. pusilla which could account for some of the differences in growth we have experienced.
Just goes to show that you are not the only one to have ( purchase)

incorrectly identified material before

[Rory]

Wow I've not heard of that species before but I'll add it to my 'avoid' list if its growth is as bad as you say.
So.... thanks to you I think I need eye ointment.
I conclude it has probably 5 leaves. I got the following results:
5
5
6
5
5
5
6

My eyes gave up after 7 attempts. So I'd say the ID is probably correct being casuarina nana.
The spacing between the joins is pretty much the same as what you said, about 3-6mm apart.

It appears to be absolutely awesome material for bonsai. I'm hoping it responds well to root pruning and cutting back.
So far I definitely feel it's going to be the best bonsai material I've ever had the pleasure of growing.
The short internodes are going to be gold for bonsai. And it grows at about half the rate of glauca so I'm very, very happy with their progress so far.

And The fact that half of these already flowered after 1 year makes me feel I'm onto a very beautiful species indeed.