What I know about "Australian Pines"
In Australia we call them Sheoak or casuarina. They have skinny, constantly growing and constantly shedding leaves or needles that droop or "weep" downwards. They can fix their own nitrogen like legumes do, and can grow on even quite sandy soils and are both drought and dampness tolerant. They propagate both by seeds and by sending out suckers. Like real pines, they produce a lot of pollen. Often planted as a windbreak on farms. Not so great in the garden unless you have a lot of space and are going for a wild natural look. Like with many actual pine trees, nothing much grows beneath a sheoak unless you remove the thick carpet of needles regularly, indeed they seem to produce even more needles than most real pines do. The growth habit of the tree varies, when planted close together they grow tall and their leaves are mostly out of reach, to be in a densely packed stand of sheoaks is to be in an environment that seems almost sterile of other life, all you see is a soft dense carpet of needles and the pole like trunks. But when planted spaced apart or alone, they grow somewhat more horizontally, and the branches and needles droop to the ground. To be under a young lone sheoak is like being in a tent with a cushioned floor. When the wind blows the tree absorbs most of the force of the wind and turns it into sound and movement of the leaves... even in quite light breezes a young sheoak will make a shush shush shush sound. When they get older they become a more standard looking branched tree with a visible trunk.
I haven't as yet been under a sheoak in heavy rain, but I suspect one growing in the more bushy form would shed water well enough that it would be quite dry near the trunk. definitely I have seen dry needles under a sheoak after heavy rain.
A young sheoak growing by itself is a nice hidden place to camp out a few days if you are living rough. An older sheoak growing by itself is nice to sit under to have a picnic. A large stand of sheoaks would is an interesting place to take a walk or a good place to go to be alone with your thoughts or to hang out with friends and not be noticed.
edited to add:
Here's a link to some of what the US government has to say about Casuarina right now, but the extant of the various weed species may have been different back in 1979. Various eradication efforts have been made, and the trees have been spreading naturally too.
http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/casspp/all.html
I wonder exactly which species the pollen was from?
hmmmm, if it is the one that tends to most often be called "Australian Pine" the answer (from this source anyway) seems to be
<i>C. equisetifolia is found only in
south Florida because of its cold intolerance. It is resistant to salt
spray but not to prolonged flooding. </i>
