User:Berrpa/Sheoak

Allocasuarina fraseriana fruit

Noongar Names : Condil (Abbott, 1983), Kulli, Gulli (Bourne, 2016) and Kwel .

Description: The kwel is native to Noongar boodja and is a non threatened species that grows (in tree form) between 5-15 meters with a fibrous reddish-brown bark. Many varieties exist as smaller species (shrubs) adapted to specific landscapes throughout Noongar boodjar. Varieties of kwel are typically recognised by slender dark green branchlets or needles and are can be found in lateritic and sandy soils. The leaves are a notable feature of all sheoaks and although their leaves resemble pine needles, sheoaks are flowering plants. Most species are generally dioecious (i.e. the male and female flowers are borne on separate plants). The flowers are wind-pollinated, and the pollen may be carried by the wind for many kilometres.

The heartwood of the kwel is dark-red to brown, and the sapwood pale yellow. The texture is moderately fine and even, and the medullary rays (cellular structures found in wood) are prominent as in other members of the genus.

Traditional uses: The kwel (sheoak) is a vital part of the Noongar people's spirituality and contributes to social and emotional wellbeing. Sitting under the kwel and listening to wind blowing through the leaves it is believed that the sounds are spirits of the old people whispering to you. The whispering of the spirits under the kwel would help induce sleep to young ones. Noongar women would often give birth under the kwel because of the softness of their needles. The combination of the needles and kangaroo skin also made bedding within shelters. Noongar people believe when the kwel needles fell on their faces, they were the tears of healing from the ancestors.

Adolescent kwel (sheoak) tree Perth coastal area, Western Australia

Kwel - Dwarf Sheoak - Allocasuarina humilis

Noongar women give birth beneath the tree because of the soft needles. The needles were also used for bedding in shelters and often covered with a kangaroo skin cloak to make a bed.

According to documentation prepared by Peter Coppin in 2008, the 'Salt Sheoak' was a common species to host a mistletoe species known as 'Nyilla Nyilla' which is a snack fruit with sweet but sticky bulb. This could also relate to a species of bird (moo-ne-je-tang) with an intrinsic relationship to this mistletoe and the kwel, please see this reference for more detail.

The tree also produces cone like seed pods that can be eaten in their early stages of growth.

One source suggests that the hard wood of she-oaks was used for making boomerangs, shields and clubs and mentions that in Wyrie Swamp, South Australia, archaeologists found a boomerang 10,000 years old, made from she-oak wood. The same source also added that young shoots were chewed to allay thirst, and young cones were also eaten. This article infers that the same use occurs in all Australian states.

Many species of the kwel (sheoak) are found in Noongar boodja and include the more common varieties listed below. Many other varieties exist further north, like the Desert Sheoak, while many other varieties grow more like shrubs than trees like the Dwarf Kwel pictured on the right.

• Western Sheoak, Allocasuarina fraseriana, 5 - 15m high, found in lateritic soils from Gingin to Perth to Albany.
• The Salt Sheoak or Swamp Sheoak, Casuarina obesa, 1.5m - 10m high, saline tolerant and found along rivers, creeks and salt lakes. Widely distributed in the south west and extends well into the north to Geraldton, north of Wiluna down to Kalgoorlie.
• The Rock Sheoak, Allocasuarina huegeliana, 4m - 10m high, associated with granite. Widely distributed in the south west and extends north to Geraldton and east to Kalgoorlie and Esperance.
• The Dune Sheoak, Allocasuarina lehmanniana, 0.5m - 4m high, found in sandy, clay, laterite and gravel soils. Typically coastal areas extending well north of Perth and along the southern coastline from Albany to east of Esperance.
• The Karri Sheoak, Allocasuarina decussata, 15m high, found in loamy soils in the far south west karri forests between Albany and Augusta.
• The Dwarf Sheoak, Allocasuarina humilus, 0.2 - 2m high, found in sand often over laterite, sandy clay, gravel, sandplains and dunes. Very wide spread species of sheoak found almost entirely within all parts of Noongar boodjar.

An early European appreciates of the kwel can be found from Mrs Edward Millett as she writes about the sounds of the kwel and its distribution within the sandy plains of Noongar country in her collection entitled 'An Australian Parsonage' which states "...,

“ irrespective of flowers, it must not be supposed that a sand plain in Western Australia invariably represents the bare and naked waste which the name implies to English ears. Many sand plains, it is true look wild enough, with patches of low growing scrub, varied only with the gaunt stems of Xanthorrhoea, and a few weird shea-oaks destitute of leaves, between whose fine countless twigs, doing duty for foliage, the air sighs in passing with the sound as of a distant railway train, and mocks the sense of hearing in much the same manner as a mirage of water deceives the eye in the deserts of other lands. ”

Listen to Audio: Here is a link to an audio recording from Bruce Odland who posted his Sheoak sounds onto the SoundCloud here.