1882. A. Tolmer, `Reminiscences,' vol, ii. p. 102:
"The root of the grass-tree is pleasant enough to eat, and tastes something like the meat of the almond-tree; but being unaccustomed to the kind of fare, and probably owing to the empty state of our stomachs, we suffered severely from diarrhoea."
1885. H. Finch-Hatton, `Advance Australia,' p. 43:
"Grass-trees are most comical-looking objects. They have a black bare stem, from one to eight feet high, surmounted by a tuft of half rushes and half grass, out of which, again, grows a long thing exactly like a huge bullrush. A lot of them always grow together, and a little way off they are not unlike the illustrations of Red-Indian chiefs in Fenimore Cooper's novels."
1889. T. Kirk, `Forest Flora of New Zealand,' p. 59:
"It [<i>Pseudopanax crassifolium</i>, the <i>Horoeka</i>] is commonly called lance-wood by the settlers in the North Island, and grass-tree by those in the South. This species was discovered during Cook's first voyage, and it need cause no surprise to learn that the remarkable difference between the young and mature states led so able a botanist as Dr. Solander to consider them distinct plants."
1896. Baldwin Spencer. `Horne Expedition in Central Australia,' Narrative, p. 98:
"As soon as the came upon the Plains we found ourselves in a belt of grass trees belonging to a species not hitherto described (<i>X. Thorntoni</i>). . . . The larger specimens have a stem some five or six feet high, with a crown of long wiry leaves and a flowering stalk, the top of which is fully twelve feet above the ground."
[Compare <i>Blackboy</i> and <i>Maori-head</i>.
<hw>Grayling</hw>, <i>n.</i> The Australian fish of that name is <i>Prototroctes maroena</i>, Gunth. It is called also the <i>Fresh-water Herring</i>, <i>Yarra Herring</i> (in Melbourne), <i>Cucumber-Fish</i>, and <i>Cucumber-Mullet</i>. The last two names are given to it from its smell. It closely resembles the English Grayling.