Allocasuarina luehmannii

Allocasuarina luehmannii, commonly known as buloke or bull-oak, is a species of flowering plant in the family Casuarinaceae and is endemic to south-eastern continental Australia. It is a dioecious tree, that has its leaves reduced to scales in whorls of ten to fourteen, and the mature fruiting cones are 5–12 mm long containing winged seeds (samaras) 4–5 mm long.

Description
Allocasuarina luehmannii is a dioecious tree that typically grows to a height of 5–15 m and has furrowed bark. Its branchlets are more or less erect, up to 400 mm long, the leaves reduced to scale-like teeth 0.5–1 mm long, arranged in whorls of ten to fourteen around the branchlets. The sections of branchlet between the leaf whorls (the "articles") are 8–22 mm long, 1–2 mm wide and often waxy. Male flowers are arranged in spikes 50-105 mm long, in whorls of five to eight per cm (per 0.4 in), the anthers 1.0–1.3 mm long. Female cones are sessile or on a peduncle up to 5 mm long, the mature cones shortly cylindrical, 5–12 mm long and 8–14 mm in diameter containing reddish-brown samaras 4–5 mm long.

Taxonomy and naming
Bull-oak was first formally described in 1900 by Richard Thomas Baker, who gave it the name Casuarina luehmannii in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales from specimens collected by Richard Hind Cambage. It was subsequently reclassified in the Allocasuarina genus as A.luehmannii by Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson in 1985 in the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

The Wiradjuri people of New South Wales use the name Ngany to refer to this species.

Distribution and habitat
Allocasuarina luehmannii usually grows in scattered places in woodland from Mareeba and south through central Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory to north-western Victoria and nearby areas of South Australia. It rarely occurs near the coast, except in the Hunter Valley and near Rockhampton.

Ecology
This tree is an important food resource for the endangered southeastern subspecies of the red-tailed black cockatoo in the Wimmera region of western Victoria, where some remnant stands are threatened by farming practices.

Wood
The wood of buloke is commonly used for knife handles, flooring, fine furniture and turned objects and is reported as being the hardest wood in the world, with a Janka hardness of 16,740 N.

Aboriginal uses
The Wiradjuri people of NSW use the timber and resinous sap to make a range of tools and other implements, including weapons, such as boomerangs and clubs. Wiradjuri people also value the species due to its ability to attract many animals that are food sources, such as possums and birds.

The Shire of Buloke in Victoria, Australia is named after this tree species.