In the 1700’s a Swedish naturalist by the name of Carolus Linnaeus developed a system for classifying and naming living organisms. It uses Latin names, which can’t change, and mean the same thing to people all around the world. This nomenclature is very handy and it’s still used today.
For most people though, common names of plants and animals are easier than the often difficult scientific names. Many of the 50 or so species of Casuarina tree, some of which are now known as Allocasuarina – which helpfully means “like the Casuarina” – have the common name of Sheoak. The timber of the tree is tough and durable and, so the story goes, was initially compared favourably by the first Europeans with the English oak. Later when it was deemed not as useful it was called the Sheoak, reflecting its inferiority. A sign of the times.
Another explanation to the name is the whispering sound of the wind in the trees foliage. With little imagination it’s a sort of Shhhhhhhhhhh … I like this story better. I know it. If you’ve ever walked a tropical beach under the horsetail Sheoak, camped on a freshwater river shrouded in the river Sheoak, or been in or around any of the drooping, scrub, slaty, grey or black Sheoak, or Bulloak, Ironwood, Beefwood or Belah, to name a few, you know it too. Shhhhhhhhhhh …
Those two explanations for the Sheoak give the plant name another layer of meaning. It’s easier to understand or remember a botanical name if you understand some of the meaning. Banksia’s are named after Joseph Banks, Captain Cook’s botanist. A plant whose leaves have a serrated edge may have a species name of serratifolia. The floral parts of the Clitoria resemble the clitoris. I bet you remember that one.
Casuarina is taken from the Malay word for the cassowary, kasuari, based on a fanciful resemblance between the trees foliage and the flightless birds tail feathers. Leaves of the Sheoaks are reduced to a whorl of tiny scales that encircle the branchlets that look a little like pine needles, or string. These branchlets eventually fall like leaves, carpeting the ground below and making it uninviting for other plants.
Female trees, or the bisexual ones, produce masses of small, segmented, woody fruits that superficially resemble pine cones. These are very hard. Bare feet know this. The segments open to release large numbers of winged seed. Winged to fly far away on the wind and colonise new spaces. Sheoaks have a vast range of traditional uses for Aboriginal people. The timber is now used in furniture and craft work. Several species have become weeds in Florida where it is known as the Australian Pine.
The Grandmother tree
Long ago, when living in north Queensland, I discovered a notation in a plant identification book referencing an Aboriginal word from the NSW south coast. Witjweri was said to be the name given to the sound of the wind in the Sheoaks. That name, that one word, stayed with me. Later, when I lived on the NSW south coast, I occasionally asked local Koories if they knew the word. For a long time none did. Until someone put me on to Frances Bodkin, a D’harawal woman from Sydney, who like many Aboriginal people knows the Sheoak as the Grandmother tree.
Aunty Fran is a keeper and teacher of traditional Aboriginal knowledge. She is also a western trained scientist with degrees in environmental science, geomorphology and climatology. Combining the two gives a uniquely holistic worldview. In her words it “offers a wider spectrum of truths.”
Aunty Fran has a passion to have Aboriginal knowledge recognised as a science. Aboriginal knowledge, based on observation and experience like all science, is put into story. Facts are always better remembered when they are embedded in a story and one D’harawal story, Dahl’wah, tells how the Sheoaks came to be.
Long ago men took responsibility for making string for hunting and fishing nets. They did this using plant fibres, twisted together by rubbing on their thighs. It was a difficult task, too difficult for women they claimed. But men were impatient, and felt they needed to do more important things like hunting and fishing. And besides, rubbing the fibres on their hairy legs was painful.
So they decided to instruct the women they should make the string. It’s not as difficult a job as we thought, they said. You can do it. The women started making the string, rolling the fibres on their thighs, then burst into laughter when they realised the real reason the men did not want to make the string. With less hairy legs than the men any hairs were easily removed by rubbing the leaf of the sandpaper fig on their thighs.
Meanwhile the men, pleased with themselves, were listening from behind the trees expecting to hear cries of pain from the women. But all they heard was laughter and chatter. Puzzled, they wandered off to do men things.
The string making duty stayed with the women who loved sitting in a circle chatting, sharing news. As they worked pieces of fibre fell to the ground, making a soft mat to sit or sleep on. When the old women died the Creator Spirit turned them into tall, straight trees, with leaves that looked like pieces of string. If you sit under these trees, the Dahl’wah, and listen carefully you can sometimes hear the chatter of the old women.
Aunty Fran acknowledges but rejects the white mans explanation of the wind in the Sheoaks. “It’s the whispering of the old ladies who keep the place safe,” she says. And it is a safe place. Sheoaks don’t drop branches haphazardly like many Eucalypts so you can camp there any time. And you don’t get snakes under Sheoaks. The leaf scales on the branchlets get under the scales on the belly of a snake. So they stay away. A safe place. And I like this story best of all.