Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia - Edward Ellis Morris

"I expressed my thirst and want of water. Looking as if they understood me, they [the aboriginals] hastened to resume their work, and I discovered that they dug up the roots for the sake of drinking the sap . . . They first cut these roots into billets, and then stripped off the bark or rind, which they sometimes chew, after which, holding up the billet, and applying one end to the mouth, they let the juice drop into it."

<hw>Wattle</hw>, n. The name is given to very many of the various species of Acacia (q.v.), of which there are about 300 in Australia, besides those in Tasmania and New Zealand. There is no English tree of that name, but the English word, which is common, signifies "a twig, a flexible rod, usually a hurdle; . . . the original sense is something twined or woven together; hence it came to mean a hurdle, woven with twigs; Anglo-Saxon, watel, a hurdle." (Skeat.) In England the supple twigs of the osier-willow are used for making such hurdles. The early colonists found the long pliant boughs and shoots of the indigenous Acacias a ready substitute for the purpose, and they used them for constructing the partitions and outer-walls of the early houses, by forming a "wattling" and daubing it with plaster or clay. (See Wattle-and-dab.) The trees thus received the name of Wattle-trees, quickly contracted to Wattle. Owing to its beautiful, golden, sweet-scented clusters of flowers, the Wattle is the favourite tree of the Australian poets and painters. The bark is very rich in tannin. (See Wattle-bark.) The tree was formerly called Mimosa (q.v.). The following list of vernacular names of the various Wattles is compiled from Maiden's `Useful Native Plants'; it will be seen that the same vernacular name is sometimes applied to several different species—

Black Wattle—
Acacia binervata, De C., of Illawarra and South.
A. decurrens, Willd., older colonists of New South
Wales.
A. cunninghamii, Hook.
A. nervifolia, Cunn.

Broad-leaved W.—
A. pycnantha, Benth.

Broom W.—
A. calamifolia, Sweet.

Feathery W.—
A. decurrens, Willd.

Golden W. (q.v.)— A. pycnantha, Benth.; in Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. It is also called Green Wattle, and also, for the sake of distinction between some other tan-bark wattles, the Broad-leaved Wattle. A. longifolia, Willd.; in New South Wales and Queensland.

Green W.—
A. decurrens, Willd., older colonists New South Wales.
A. pycnantha, Benth.
A. discolor, Willd.; so called in Tasmania, and called
also there River Wattle.

Hickory W.—
A. aulacocarpa, Cunn.

Prickly W.—
A. sentis, F. v. M.
A. juniperina, Willd.