"A hot beverage in a tin pot, which richly deserved the colonial epithet of `post-and-rail' tea, for it might well have been a decoction of `split stuff,' or `ironbark shingles,' for any resemblance it bore to the Chinese plant."
1870. T. H. Braim, `New Homes,' c. i. p. 28:
"The shepherd's wife kindly gave us the invariable mutton-chop and damper and some post-and-rail tea."
1883. Keighley, `Who are you?' p. 36:
"Then took a drink of tea. . . .
Such as the swagmen in our goodly land
Have with some humour named the `post-and-rail.'"
<hw>Potato-Fern</hw>, <i>n</i>. a fern (<i>Marattia fraxinea</i>, Smith) with a large part edible, sc. the basal scales of the frond. Called also the <i>Horseshoe-fern</i>.
<hw>Potato, Native</hw>, <i>n</i>. a sort of Yam, <i>Gastrodia sesamoides</i>, R. Br., <i>N.O. Orchideae</i>.
1834. Ross, `Van Diemen's Land Annual,' p. 131:
"Produces bulb-tubers growing one out of another, of the size, and nearly the form, of kidney potatoes; the lowermost is attached by a bundle of thick fleshy fibres to the root of the tree from which it derives its nourishment. These roots are roasted and eaten by the aborigines; in taste they resemble beet-root, and are sometimes called in the colony native potatoes."
1857. F. R. Nixon, `Cruise of the Beacon,' p. 27: