"Many persons who had been lured into gathering armfuls of early wattle had cause to regret their devotion to the Australian national bloom, for the golden wattle blossoms produced unpleasant associations in the minds of the wearers of the green, and there were blows and curses in plenty. In political botany the wattle and blackthorn cannot grow side by side."
1896. `The Melburnian,' Aug. 28, p. 53:
"The last two weeks have been alive with signs and tokens, saying `Spring is coming, Spring is here.' And though this may not be the `merry month of May,' yet it is the time of glorious Golden Wattle,—wattle waving by the river's bank, nodding aloft its soft plumes of yellow and its gleaming golden oriflamme, or bending low to kiss its own image in the brown waters which it loves."
<hw>Goodenia</hw>, <i>n.</i> the scientific and popular name of a genus of Australian plants, closely resembling the <i>Gentians</i>; there are many species. The name was given by Sir James Smith, president of the Linnaean Society, in 1793. See quotation.
1793. `Transactions of the Linn.can Society,' vol. ii. p. 346:
"I [Smith] have given to this . . . genus the name of Goodenia, in honour of . . . Rev. Dr. <i>Goodenough</i>, treasurer of this Society, of whose botanical merits . . . example of Tournefort, who formed Gundelia from Gundelscheimer."
[Dr. Goodenough became Bishop of Carlisle; he was the grandfather of Commodore Goodenough.]
1889. J. H. Maiden, `Useful Native Plants,' p. 188:
"A species of <i>Goodenia</i> is supposed to be used by the native gins to cause their children to sleep on long journeys, but it is not clear which is used."
<hw>Goodletite</hw>, <i>n.</i> scientific name for a matrix in which rubies are found. So named by Professor Black of Dunedin, in honour of his assistant, William Goodlet, who was the first to discover the rubies in the matrix, on the west coast.