Drooping Sheoke - native (Allocasuarina verticillata)
Buloke - native (Allocasuarina luehmanii)
Family: Casuarinaceae
Original descriptions of the districts plants indicated that banksias and sheokes were abundant. It is not clear whetether the sheokes were Drooping Sheoke or Buloke, or both. Both are now scattered through the district.
Both Sheokes and Bulokes are either male or female i.e. the trees have female flowers only, or male flowers only, so there are male and female sheokes and male and female bulokes.
The differences between the two include
| Drooping Sheoke | Buloke | ||
| Branchlets | Drooping, willowy | More or less erect | |
| Cones | Oval. Longer than wide | Flattened Wider than long | |
| Distribution | Becoming more common to the south | Becoming more common to the north | |
VROTS: Endangered. Listed (Buloke).
Allocasuarina: allo: other (than Casuarina); casuarina a cassowary, from the resemblance of the drooping branches to the feathers of a bird.
Sheoke (1st row)1: Cones are large and oval. 2. Drooping foliage. Greenhill Avenue. 3: Tree. Mt Arapiles.
Buloke (2nd row). 4: Cones are flattened. 5: Stiff branchlets with male flowers. Baringhup. 6: Tree. Lalbert cemetery.
7: Drooping Sheoke, Coastal Portland. 8: Buloke, Muckleford-Walmer Rd.
9. Buloke. Moolort Plains. 10: A seedling planted in Kaweka many years ago. Without the appropriate soil micro-organisms growth rate can be very slow.