Casuarina pauper

Casuarina pauper is a dioecious tree similar to C. cristata, that typically grows to a height of 5–15 m (16–49 ft), has a DBH of up to 0.5 m (1 ft 8 in), and sometimes produces root suckers. The branchlets are more or less erect or spreading, up to 250 mm (9.8 in) long, the leaves reduced to scale-like teeth 0.8–0.9 mm (0.031–0.035 in) long, arranged in whorls of 9 to 13 around the branchlets. The sections of branchlet between the leaf whorls (the "articles") are waxy, 8–17 mm (0.31–0.67 in) long and 1.0–1.8 mm (0.039–0.071 in) wide. The flowers on male trees are arranged in spikes 10–30 mm (0.39–1.18 in) long, the anthers 0.8–1.1 mm (0.031–0.043 in) long. The female cones are covered with rusty hairs, on a peduncle 1–14 mm (0.039–0.551 in) long. The mature cones are usually 10–22 mm (0.39–0.87 in) long and 11–15 mm (0.43–0.59 in) in diameter, the samaras 5.5–7.0 mm (0.22–0.28 in) long.^[2][3][4]

This species is a poorer, stunted form of C. cristata, and the two species often intergrade where their ranges overlap.^[2]

Casuarina pauper was first formally described in 1989 by Lawrie Johnson in the Flora of Australia from a Ferdinand von Mueller's unpublished description of a plant he collected in the Flinders Ranges in 1851.^[5] The specific epithet (pauper) means "scanty" or "poor", referring to the habit of the species compared to C. cristata.^[6]

Johnson had previously described Casuarina cristata subsp. pauper (Miq.) L.A.S.Johnson in the journal Nuytsia,^[7] based Miquel's C. pauper, but the name was not valid, because Miquel explicitly did not accept von Mueller's description of Casuarina pauper, considering it the same species as C. cristata.^[8][9][10]