Allocasuarina microstachya
Allocasuarina microstachya is a species of flowering plant in the family Casuarinaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is dioecious shrub that has its leaves reduced to scales in whorls of four, the mature fruiting cones long containing winged seeds long. Description Allocasuarina microstachya is a dioecious, intricately-branched shrub that typically grows to a height of . Its branchlets are up to long, the leaves reduced to scale-like teeth long, arranged in whorls of four around the needle-like branchlets. The sections of branchlet between the leaf whorls are mostly long, wide and more or less square in cross-section. Male flowers are arranged in spikes long, the anthers long. Female cones are sessile, the mature cones shortly cylindrical to oval, long and in diameter containing black, hairy, winged seeds long. Taxonomy This sheoak was first formally described in 1845 by Friedrich Anton Wilhelm Miquel who gave it the name Casuarina microstachya in Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae from specimens collected by Ludwig Preiss in 1839. It was reclassified in 1982 as Allocasuarina microstachya by Lawrie Johnson in the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. The specific epithet (microstachya) means "small flower spike". Distribution and habitat Allocasuarina microstachya grows in