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

"In this they will find an extremely rich collection of bottle-brush-flowered, zigzag-leaved, grey-tinted, odd-looking things, to most eyes rather strange than beautiful, notwithstanding that one of them is named Banksia speciosa. They are the `Botany Bays' of old-fashioned gardeners, but are more in the shrub and tree line than that of flowering pots. Banksia Solandei will remind them to turn to their `Cook's Voyages' when they get home, to read how poor Dr. Solander got up a mountain and was heartily glad to get down again."

1877. F. v. Mueller, `Botanic Teachings,' p. 46:

"The banksias are of historic interest, inasmuch as the genus was dedicated already by the younger Linne in 1781 to Sir Joseph Banks, from whom the Swedish naturalist received branchlets of those species, which in Captain Cook's first voyage more than 100 years ago (1770) were gathered by Banks at Botany-Bay and a few other places of the east coast of Australia."

1887. J. Bonwick, `Romance of the Wool Trade,' p. 228:

"A banksia plain, with its collection of bottle-brush-like-flowers, may have its charms for a botanist, but its well-known sandy ground forbids the hope of good grasses."

<hw>Baobab</hw>, n. a tree, native of Africa, Adansonia digitata. The name is Ethiopian. It has been introduced into many tropical countries. The Australian species of the genus is A. gregorii, F. v. M., called also Cream of Tartar or Sour Gourd-tree, Gouty-stem (q.v.), and Bottle-tree (q.v.).

<hw>Barber</hw>, or <hw>Tasmanian Barber</hw>, n. a name for the fish Anthias rasor, Richards., family Percidae; also called Red-Perch. See Perch. It occurs in Tasmania, New Zealand, and Port Jackson. It is called Barber from the shape of the praeoperculum, one of the bones of the head. See quotation.

1841. John Richardson, `Description of Australian Fish,' p. 73:

"Serranus Rasor.— Tasmanian Barber. . . . The serrature of the preoperculum is the most obvious and general character by which the very numerous Serrani are connected with each other . . . The Van Diemen's Land fish, which is described below, is one of the `Barbers,' a fact which the specific appellation rasor is intended to indicate; the more classical word having been previously appropriated to another species. . . Mr. Lempriere states that it is known locally as the `red perch or shad.'"

[Richardson also says that Cuvier founded a subdivision of the Serrani on the characters of the scales of the jaws, under the name of `les Barbiers,' which had been previously grouped by Block under the title Anthias.]