beef-wood

Dictionary of Australasian Words Phrases and Usages by Edward E. Morris

n.


the timber of various Australiantrees, especially of the genus Casuarina, and some ofthe Banksias; often used as a synonym of She-oak (q.v.).The name is taken from the redness of the wood.

1826. J. Atkinson, `Agriculture and Grazing in New South Wales,'p. 31:

«The wood is well known in England by the names of Botany Baywood, or beef wood.The grain is very peculiar, but the wood isthought very little of in the colony; it makes good shingles,splits, in the colonial phrase, from heart to bark . . .»

1833. C. Sturt, `Southern Australia,' vol. i. c. i. p. 22:

«They seemed to be covered with cypresses and beef-wood.»

1846. C. Holtzapffel, `Turning,' vol. i. p. 74:

«Beef wood. Red-coloured woods are sometimes thus named, butit is generally applied to the Botany-Bay oak.»

1852. G. C. Munday, `Our Antipodes' (edition 1855), p. 219:

«A shingle of the beef-wood looks precisely like a rawbeef-steak.»

1856. Capt. H. Butler Stoney, `A Residence in Tasmania,' p. 265:

«We now turn our attention to some trees of a very differentnature, Casuarina stricta and quadrivalvis,commonly called He and She oak, and sometimes known by the nameof beef-wood, from the wood, which is very hard and takes ahigh polish, exhibiting peculiar maculae spots and veinsscattered throughout a finely striated tint . . .»

1868. Paxton's `Botanical Dictionary,' p. 116:

«Casuarinaceae,or Beefwoods. Curious branching, leafless treesor shrubs, with timber of a high order, which is both hard andheavy, and of the colour of raw beef, whence the vulgar name.»

1889. J. H. Maiden, `Useful Native Plants.' (See `Index ofvernacular names.')

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