Talk:Acacia coriacea

Desert Oak is a casuarina
Desert Oak is Desert Oak Allocasuarina decaisneana (F.Muell.) L.A.S.Johnson, J. Adelaide Bot. Gard. 6: 74 (1982) Desert Oak, Desert Sheoak 07:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Djapa84 (talk • contribs)

Common name

 * The discussion here has been copied and pasted from the respective editor's talk pages*

Hi Mark, lets not get into a stupid edit war over this. A Google search for "desert oak" combined with either "Allocasuarina decaisneana" or "Acacia coriacea" will certainly bring up plenty of hits but this does not prove anything. Searching for "holden monaro" and "desert oak" gets hits on Google (interestingly the only one of those that specifies the species refers to Allocasuarina decaisneana). Referring to an authoritative text carries far more weight when it comes to an encyclopaedic work, and as it turns out I have found one to support your assertion - a 1986 version of Flora of South Australia includes desert oak among the names of Acacia coriacea, so I will add that reference. However we still need to mention that the name is usually applied to the Allocasuarina as is shown by most recent Australian flora guides, both on line and hard copy that I have access to. Djapa Owen (talk) 13:53, 13 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Lets just abide by WP:LEADCLUTTER. WP:BEGIN. The lede is supposed to provide a summary of the article, not be a clutter of references and doubtful trivia about other uses of common names.
 * I agree, the number of Google hits doesn't prove the most common usage, but it certainly does disprove your claim that "on-line search produced no authoritative reference calling A coriacea desert oak". You first claimed that you performed a Google search for "desert oak" combined with or "Acacia coriacea" and it did not bring up any hits at all, and that this proved it was not a common name. Now you claim that when you do it, it brings up many hits, and this still does not prove anything either.
 * You are now claiming to have found only one reference to support the claim that this species is called desert oak, when a search using any engine returns references from the FAO, ANBG, CSIRO, Royal Botanic Gardens, SGAP, ABRS and several of the "bibles", including Leigh's "Plants of Western NSW", Anderson's "Plants of Central Queensland" and Moore's " Plants of Inland Australia". If botanists like Anderson, Moore, Leigh and Latz are not authoritative on this issue, I'm not sure who is.
 * I'm trying to maintain good faith here, so I can only suggest that you scan your computer for search engine hijackers which may be preventing you from finding the most common returns of these search terms, only to be later able to find an abundance.
 * You are encouraged to add trivia about other applications of common names in later sections of the article, but it doesn't belong on the lede, as per WP. However we still need evidence for the claim that the name is usually applied to the A. decaisneana. It certainly is applied to that plant, and several others including Hakea and Quercus species, but the highly restricted distribution of A. decaisneana compared to the almost continent-wide distribution of A. coriacea makes it highly suspect that the former is the plant to which it is usually applied. I certainly can't find where Jessop and Toelken make such a claim, so perhaps you could quote the statement and the page number so I can check at the work library.Mark Marathon (talk) 22:12, 13 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Would you please help me out by showing me where I claimed that a Google search for "Acacia coriacea" & "desert oak" comes up with no hit at all?
 * Would you also please point out where the relevant links from ANBG (searching ANBG for desert oak comes up with both species with the primary common name of A. coriacea listed as wirwewood), CSIRO (do you mean which lists the trade name for A. coriacea as desert oak and the common name as dogwood?), Royal Botanic Gardens ( gives the primary commobn name as wirewood, ABRS (Isn't that ANBG? Are you referring to them twice?) are? They are not coming up in my searches, at least not on the first several pages.
 * As for search engine hijackers, there is no need to get sarcastic. And your assertion that the range of desert oak is negligible is interesting, if you compare and  both species have ranges bigger than Queensland.
 * You will see in my citations of Jessop that I gave the page numbers so I will not repeat them. The precise quotes are as follows: "1. A. decaisneana (F. Muell.)L. Johnson, J.Adelaide Bot.Gard. 6:74(1982). Desert oak, Desert sheoak." thus listing only two common names and leading with desert oak, and for the acacia; "21. A. coriacea DC., Prod. 2:451 (1825). Wire-wood, desert oak, wiry wattle."
 * See also p41 of part 1, "The principal criteria used in selecting common names were that names should be those most likely to be widely known, helpful in indicating relationships,derived, where appropriate from well-known scientific generic names and including names used interstate even if not currently used in South Australia. It was also agreed to accept names currently used overseas and to exclude names used for unrelated species or likely to cause offence.
 * "Names (both generic and specific) selected by the committee are printed in bold."..."Those not selected by the committee are printed in italics."
 * Desert oak is printed in bold in the entry for decaisneana and in italics for coriacea indicating that the committee selected it as the common name for decaisneana and not for coriacea.
 * This discussion should really be placed on the talk page for coriacea so all interested parties can see it and not have to trawl through our respective talk pages.   Djapa Owen (talk) 00:50, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Mark Marathon claims that the name desert oak for A coriacea is prevalent throughout the majority of the range of this species, and yet the official application of that name in SA, NT and WA is to Allocasuarina decaisneana as shown in the Jessop reference discussed above, here (Federal Dept. of Environment), here  (WA DEC Florabase) and here  (NT govt.). Where is the 'majority of its range? Is it the outlying poulation in SW NSW?   Djapa Owen (talk) 08:45, 14 June 2013 (UTC)