Comments on: No, mate, it’s Australian!

By: Glenda Larke

Glenda Larke — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:28:35 +0000

Ah, Smathi, you are making me homesick.

Deb, that's a good point. We use the terms without thinking them through.

It's like the way I have to forget talking about "the bush" and refer to Australian not-quite-forest as "woodland" instead. My sister is President of the W.A. Naturalists Club, so I get scolded otherwise…

By: Deb

Deb — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:24:33 +0000

I remember being on a tourist boat ride in Kakadu when we lived there. A tourist commented on all the wild horses. The National Parks guide made it very clear that there are actually no 'wild' horses in Australia, they are all feral horses.

By: Helen V.

Helen V. — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:45:36 +0000

It's funny how little people know about what is native and what isn't.
A few years ago here in Perth there was a mass poisoning of birds. Some undesirable had put out poisoned grain and a lot of introduced turtle and laughing doves were killed along with galahs and other natives. It was covered in all the media and one television channel interviewed a very upset woman, her hands full of dead doves. She was saying how terrible it was that all these lovely native doves had been killed. No-one seemed to notice the mistake.

By: Jo

Jo — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 05:51:10 +0000

I have never heard anyone claim eucalyptus as their own – to me it is symbolic of Australia, Eucalyptus and Koalas (or as they have been described to me, by an Aussie, pissy little animals).

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:52:31 +0000

My favourite Eucalyptus trees are snow gums, ghost gums, large old river red gums and tall majestic mountain ash. Scribbly barks are rather interesting too.

The Israelis got a head start cultivating native Australian flowers for the cut flower markets. Australia is only just catching up.

Smathi