480 



Gum, and under E. punctata, at Part X, p. 202, the subject is discussed under the futile 

 attempts to have " one species, one common name." E. 'punctata is a well-known Grey 

 Gum, but it has not the monopoly of that name by any means, and the consequent 

 situation is pointed out. But when one desires to thresh the matter out, vested interests 

 and expediency always effectively prevent it. 



3. ABORIGINAL NAMES. 



The aboriginal owners of the soil were split up into tribes with different languages, 

 and in the comparatively few cases in which they had names for plants, these names did 

 not pass current over large areas. I am unable to ask my readers to believe that the 

 aboriginal knowledge of Eucalyptus was (or is) profound, for I have no evidence of it. I 

 have endeavoured to attach names to species to the best of my ability. It is further 

 regrettable that, in many districts, by the time the white man had begun to possess 

 more than a superficial knowledge of the Eucalypts, the aborigines had died out. 



Speaking of far more civilised races than the Australian aborigines, Hooker said :- - 



Throughout our travels in India, we were struck with the undue reliance placed on native names 

 of plants, and information of all kinds ; and the pertinacity with which each linguist adhered to his own 

 crotchet as to the application of terms to natural objects, and their pronunciation. It is a very prevalent, 

 but erroneous, impression, that savage and half -civilised people have an accurate knowledge of objects of 

 natural history and a uniform nomenclature for them. (Himalayan Journals, II, 328 (1854).) 



For many years I have made a point of setting down the names stated to be those 

 of the Australian aborigines for Eucalypts, and indeed plants of all sorts, but with only a 

 limited amount of success. I do not dispute for a moment, that the aborigines had names 

 for some plants that we have not ascertained, and that, with their simple requirements, 

 they put certain plants, or parts of plants, to uses that the white man has not put on record. 

 But kindly sympathy with a disappearing race has often led worthy people to believe 

 that they discriminated species to an extent which is very unlikely, or that they had 

 uses for plants which were not obvious from superficial examination of their properties. 



There is great lack of uniformity of orthography in aboriginal names. For example 

 the name " Urac " given by Drummond (see Part XVII, p. 240). In that passage 

 I did not remember the botanical name as E. salmonophloia, but the aboriginal name of 

 this species is by Lort Stokes spelled " Wooruc," and by Mr. Geo. F. Best (see Western 

 Mail of 24th April, 1914) " Wourruk." I gave the spelling " Wuruk " under 

 E. salmonophloia (Part XVII, p. 217). In other words, different people record differently, 

 in English letters, the same name. Furthermore, as the years roll on, variants arise in 

 the pronunciation. We have agreed as to the official spelling in the case of a number of 

 native names, but, as regards the vast majority of them, every man seems to spell as he 

 chooses. 



