The word is English in thesense of a strong cane, and is the name of various climbingshrubs from which the canes are cut; especially in America.In Australia, the name is given to similar creeping plants,viz. – – Ventilago viminalis, Hook., N.O. Rhamnaceae; Clematis aristata, R. Br., N.O. Ranunculaceae. In New Zealand, to Ripogonum (spp.).
1818. `History of New South Wales,' p. 47:
«The underwood is in general so thick and so bound together bythat kind of creeping shrub called supple-jack, interwoven inall directions, as to be absolutely impenetrable.»
1845. E. J. Wakefield, `Adventures in New Zealand,' vol. i.p. 218:
«After a tedious march . . . along a track constantlyobstructed by webs of the kareau, or supple-jack, we came tothe brow of a descent.»
1857. C. Hursthouse, `New Zealand, the Britain of the South,'vol. i. p. 135:
«Supple-jack snares, root-traps, and other parasiticalimpediments.»
1867. F. Hochstetter, `New Zealand,' p. 135:
«Two kinds of creepers extremely molesting and troublesome,the so-called `supple-jack' of the colonists ( Ripogonumparviflorum), in the ropelike creeping vines of whichthe traveller finds himself every moment entangled.»
1872. A. Domett, `Ranolf,' p. 11:
«The tangles black
Of looped and shining supple jack.»
1874. W. M. B., `Narrative of Edward Crewe,' p. 199:
The supple-jack, that stopper to all speedy progression in the New Zealand forest.»
1881. J.L. Campbell, `Poenamo,' p. 154:
«Forty or fifty feet of supple-jack. This creeper is of thethickness of your finger, and runs along the ground, and goesup the trees and springs across from one tree to the other,spanning great gaps in some mysterious manner of its own – – atough, rascally creeper that won't break, that you can't twistin two, that you must cut, that trips you by the foot or theleg, and sometimes catches you by the neck . . . so usefulwithal in its proper places.»
1882. T. H. Potts, `Out in the Open,' p. 71:
«Threading with somewhat painful care intricacies formed byloops and snares of bewildering supple-jacks, that living studyof Gordian entanglement, nature-woven, for patient exercise ofhand and foot.»
1892. A. Sutherland, `Elementary Geography of BritishColonies,' p. 309:
«Laced together by creepers called supple-jacks, which twineand twist for hundreds of yards, with stems as thick as a man'swrist, so as to make the forests impassable except with axesand immense labour.»