Karragaroo – a name that doesn’t deserve to die
Author: Trish Gardner, Toowoomba Branch
Published: Journal September 2021
I have an enthusiasm for common names. I know that not all botanists agree, but I think that good common name is part of the process of helping Australians to learn about our native flora – one of the aims of our club. Botanical names can seem too hard to many people, so I like it when I see articles in like those Glenn Leiper writes for this magazine where a good common name is carefully chosen, often from several available and used alongside the botanical name. I also like it when people invent a common name, where none has been invented before. Best of all is the use of Aboriginal names – ancient names whose origin is lost in the distant past.
Long ago in the dark ages, I attended Saint Hilda’s school in Southport. It had (and probably still has) three houses, called Banksia, Melaleuca, and Karragaroo. We knew they were plants, but so little were the school staff interested in Australian flora, in those days, that no-one ever thought it necessary to tell us what kinds of plants they were. I can’t remember any of them being grown there.
I later learned what the first two of those words meant, but what was a ‘karragaroo’? With the advent of the internet, and the ability to access a whole lot more information, I discovered it was the name of a house in Ipswich, built in 1883– a time when there was an upsurge of interest in Australian flora and fauna. No doubt it was named after the plant, but which plant?
After much searching I eventually found the answer. (Alas, I was never able to find the reference again. Items on the internet are prone to being ephemeral.)
The karragaroo plant, it turns out, is Xanthorrhoea macronema, the lovely plant described by Jan Sked in the last issue of Native Plants Queensland. The modern common name of ‘bottlebrush grass tree’ seems to me to be a bit boring by comparison.
Saint Hilda’s was established in 1912 by two ladies (the ‘Misses Bourne’) who must have had an interest in botany. At that time there must have been a great many of all three of those plants around. My mother (also a student at Saint Hilda’s in her time) was taken to what later became known as the ‘Gold Coast’ for holidays every year, from a very early age. In those days, after the Jubilee bridge was built in 1924, one drove off the far side onto a sandy track with large trees – Melaleucas and Banksias, perhaps – overhanging the road. No doubt the family, in their terribly modern motor car, passed many karragaroos as they made their way to Broadbeach.
We all know that one of the problems with common names is that so many plants have more than one of them. Some seem to have lots. However, I am in favour of the policy of adopting and popularising the ‘best’ common name.
In this case, I’m all for ‘karragaroo’.