Bio Diversity Park

Common Name : Whistling Pine

Hindi Name : जंगलीसारू | Scientific Name : Casuarina equisetifolia
Family : Casuarinaceae
Uses : The bark is used to treat dysentery and diarrhoea. The twigs are used for swelling and as a wash for beri beri. The wood of this tree is extremely hard and dense, and has been used for construction of stilts, poles and fences in coastal areas. It is also an excellent fuel wood and is among the hottest burning fuel woods in the world. It is also frequently planted as a windbreak and to stabilise coastal sand dunes. With high productivity and properties that enhance soil fertility, it is considered as an agroforestry species for arid and semi-arid areas.
Native: Southeast Asia (including Singapore) to Australia and the Pacific Islands.
General Description:

It is from the Malay word ‘kasuari’, from the supposed resemblance of the twigs to the plumage of the cassowary bird. It is an evergreen, dioecious or monoecious tree 6- 35 (60)m tall, with a finely branched crown. Crown shape initially conical but tends to flatten with age. Trunk straight, cylindrical, usually branchless for up to 10m, up to 100 (max. 150) cm in diameter, occasionally with buttresses. Bark light greyish-brown, smooth on young trunks, rough, thick, furrowed and flaking into oblong pieces on older trees; inner bark reddish or deep dirty brown, astringent. The branchlets are deciduous, drooping, needle like, terete but with prominent angular ribs, 23-38cm x 0.5-1mm, greyish-green, articles 5-8mm long, glabrous to densely pubescent, dimorphic, either deciduous or persistent. Flowers unisexual; perianth absent, replaced by 2 bracteoles. Male flowers in a terminal, simple, elongated spike, 7-40mm long, borne in whorls with 7-11.5 whorls/cm of spike, with a single stamen. Female inflorescence on a short lateral branchlet, cylindrical, cone-shaped or globose, 10-24 x 9-13mm; bracteoles more acute, more or less protruding from the surface of the cone. Infructescence a woody, conelike structure. Fruit a grey or yellow-brown winged nut (samara). Seed solitary.