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

"Zosterops chloronotus, Gould, Green-backed Z.; Grape and Fig-eater, Colonists of Swan River."

<hw>Grass</hw>, n. In Australia, as elsewhere, the name Grass is sometimes given to plants which are not of the natural order Gramineae, yet everywhere it is chiefly to this natural order that the name is applied. A fair proportion of the true Grasses common to many other countries in the world, or confined, on the one hand to temperate zones, or on the other to tropical or sub-tropical regions, are also indigenous to Australia, or Tasmania, or New Zealand, or sometimes to all three countries. In most cases such grasses retain their Old World names, as, for instance, Barnyard- or Cock-spur Grass (Panicum crus-galli, Linn.); in others they receive new Australian names, as Ditch Millet (Paspalum scrobitulatum, F. v. M.), the `Koda Millet' of India; and still again certain grasses named in Latin by scientific botanists have been distinguished by a vernacular English name for the first time in Australia, as Kangaroo Grass (Anhistiria ciliata, Linn.), which was "long known before Australia became colonized, in South Asia and all Africa" (von Muller), but not by the name of the Kangaroo.

Beyond these considerations, the settlers of Australia, whose wealth depends chiefly on its pastoral occupation, have introduced many of the best Old-World pasture grasses (chiefly of the genera Poa and Festuca), and many thousands of acres are said to be "laid down with English grass." Some of these are now so wide-spread in their acclimatization, that the botanists are at variance as to whether they are indigenous to Australia or not; the Couch Grass, for instance (Cynodon dactylon, Pers.), or Indian Doub Grass, is generally considered to be an introduced grass, yet Maiden regards it as indigenous.

There remain, "from the vast assemblage of our grasses, even some hundred indigenous to Australia" (von Muller), and a like number indigenous to New Zealand, the greater proportion of which are endemic. Many of these, accurately named in Latin and described by the botanists, have not yet found their vernacular equivalents; for the bushman and the settler do not draw fine botanical distinctions. Maiden has classified and fully described 158 species as "Forage Plants," of which over ninety have never been christened in English. Mr. John Buchanan, the botanist and draughtsman to the Geographical Survey of New Zealand, has prepared for his Government a `Manual of the Indigenous Grasses of New Zealand,' which enumerates eighty species, many of them unnamed in English, and many of them common also to Australia and Tasmania. These two descriptive works, with the assistance of Guilfoyle's Botany and Travellers' notes, have been made the basis of the following list of all the common Australian names applied to the true Grasses of the N.O. Gramineae. Some of them of very special Australian character appear also elsewhere in the Dictionary in their alphabetical places, while a few other plants, which are grasses by name and not by nature, stand in such alphabetical place alone, and not in this list. For facility of comparison and reference the range and habitat of each species is indicated in brackets after its name; the more minute limitation of such ranges is not within the scope of this work. The species of Grass present in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand are—

1. Alpine Rice Grass—
Ehrharta colensoi, Cook. (N.Z.)

2. Alpine Whorl G.—
Catabrosa antarctica, Hook. f. (N.Z.)

3. Bamboo G.—
Glyceria ramigera, F. v. M. (A.)
Called also Cane Grass.
Stipa verticillata, Nees.(A.)

4. Barcoo G. (of Queensland)—
Anthistiria membranacea, Lindl. (A.)
Called also Landsborough Grass.

5. Barnyard G.—
Panicum crus-galli, Linn. (A., not endemic.)
Called also Cockspur Grass.

6. Bayonet G.—
Aciphylla colensoi.(N.Z.)
Called also Spear-Grass (see 112), and
Spaniard (q.v.).