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Sheoaks and Tammars

26/6/2016

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​Belonging to the Casuarinaceae family, these plants are instantly recognised by their needle-like foliage and the wonderful sighing sound of the wind passing through them. Around Narrogin we tend to notice the trees most: Rock Sheoak; Allocasuarina huegeliana on well drained soils, and Salt Sheoak; Casuarina obesa in semi saline lakes and waterways. A bed of sheoak needles with a whispering wind overhead is a wonderful place for courting couples (after they have repelled the ants, ticks and mosquitos).
The common name Sheoak was first given to Rock Sheoak by early European settlers who thought the wood resembeld that of the European oak but was inferior, and being sexists called it she-oak. 
The genus name Casuarina is derived from the Malay word for cassowary, due to similarities of layered feathers/ needles. If you look closely at a needle you will notice rings of scales, which are the true leaves. The green needles are in fact photosynthesising stems. Casuarinas and Allocasuarinas have subtle differences in cone structure and needle orientation. Allocasuarina means opposite to Casuarina, referring to needle orientation.
Tammas or tammars, are shrubs, which become dominant on gravelly soils generally east of a line through Yealering and Harrismith.
 
Casuarinaceae have male and female plants (dioecious), but differ from the animal world in that the females have the nuts (cones). 
Male plants produce pollen that is blown by wind to female flowers. Like most wind pollinated species, huge amounts of pollen are produced, and you will notice now green female and orange pollen-bearing males everywhere.
​In our bush the vast majority of plants in the bush have root modifications (cluster or proteoid roots) and alliances with fungi (mycorrhizas), which enhance their ability to access nutrients and water and to build a 'niche' to give them an advantage over others. 
Plants on poor sand or gravel soils often have cluster roots that are also instrumental in forming gravels.
Eucalypts and other plants on more fertile soils mainly use mycorrhizas.
Casuarinaceae are very adaptable. They have cluster roots, ectomycorrhizas (where the fungus does not invade the plant root), AND nodules where bacteria produce nitrogen like legumes.
 
Allocasuarina huegeliana was named Rock Sheoak because it mostly occurred around granite rock outcrops. Competition by other plants and grazing of seedlings by by native marsupials restricted their spread. Small marsupial extinction has allowed the sheoaks to spread, and thick needle  cover  suppresses other plants.   Since European settlement they have spread greatly on roadsides and other well drained areas of bush. I frequently see roads with remnant wandoo vegetation on one side of a road and rock sheoak thicket on the disturbed other side. 
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Rock Sheoak female flower and cone
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Male Rock Sheoak loaded with pollen
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Mixed male and female trees
narrogin_sheoaks_tammas.pdf
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Female (left) and male dwarf sheoak
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Wheatbelt Tammar Allocasuarina campestris
There are lots of tammas (all Allocasuarinas), particularly on kwongan soils, which are often overlooked because they don’t have conventional flowers. Foxes Lair has Dwarf Sheoak; Allocasuarina humilis on gravels, and Allocasuarina microstachyia that only occurs on the south side of the Claypit.
My favourite is the compass bush; Allocasuarina pinaster, which occurs in the Lake Grace area on grey sandy gravels. The nearest Location is Holden Road near Tarin Rock. 
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Compass bush plant
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Compass bush fruit
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Puffballs

18/6/2016

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Puffballs belong to a group called Gasteroid fungi that lack an open cap with spore-bearing gills. Instead, spores are produced internally, in a spheroidal fruiting body as a fleshy mass that changes to powdery, water repellent spores. A hole often usually forms in the skin at the top, and pressure from raindrops causes the pores to puff out and disperse. The skin can split to reveal a powdery mass that can end up as a soggy mess.
Many are edible at the firm stage. When I was at uni I had a great mycology (fungi study) lecturer who showed us the edible fungi in the suburbs. Much to my mother’s horror I picked a heap of white puffballs from the front lawn then sliced and fried them. The taste was nothing special but I was unaffected.
​
False truffles belong to another group that produce underground fruiting bodies that emit a smell that attracts small marsupials like woylies. They dig them up and eat them and spread the spores in their dung. There are no woylies left in Foxes Lair, but I have recently seen similar groups of holes that must have been dug by kangaroos.
 
The images below show a large puffball in progressive stages of spore release.
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Early fleshy stage
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Maturing spores split the skin
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Spore mass exposed and coated by water drops
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Droplets coated by water repellent spores
More information
Earth Balls Puff balls and Earth Stars
Narrogin False Truffles
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Sheet web spider

10/6/2016

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PictureFlat spreading web
For months I was intrigued by flat cushion like webs Which spread across the ground from the base of a low plant in open rush country. At first I attempted to return to a web after the dew had gone to find that it had disappeared. I then tagged the spot and returned again to find a small hole in the ground and realised that the spider ate its web each morning to recycle the precious silk for a new evening web.
I returned again with the next dew with a supply of flies and pill bugs and almost froze my butt off dropping them into webs and hoping to see a magnificent trapdoor type spider to emerge. After much waiting, I discovered that the occupant was an exceptionally shy and squirty specimen, which hunted prey several times its size, but disappeared whenever I tried to take a photo.
Patience prevailed and I was able to identify the spider as a  Corasoides species.
They are also known as Parachute Spiders.

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Entry funnel in web
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At entrance
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Emerging
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    Doug Sawkins is a friend of Foxes Lair 

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