Talk:Xanthorrhoea

Distribution Map
Your distribution map is off. The blue needs to extend down through victoria into tasmania. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.199.139 (talk) 08:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

earlier comments
Lomandra (mat-rushes) are also a genus of Xanthorrhoeaceae. http://farrer.riv.csu.edu.au/ASGAP/l-mul.html has a minor page on them, though there are many resources out there. Someone better at botany than me may want to take a look at it. Peter1968 04:57, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Image
I added the image but after reading the Kingia article I'm now unsure which plant the image actually is. Any thoughts anyone? Cheers SeanMack 15:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It looks more like a Xanthorrhoea to me, but I'm no expert. User talk:Hesperian 00:15, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Challenged?
Some one might check the following out - not a scientific treatise,but... it might give some clues, and - its b&w! Grass Trees Of Western Australia : Blackboys & Black Gins / Hal Missingham. Fremantle, W.A. : Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1978. library number 584.43 MIS User:SatuSuro 00:31, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

"Boy holding a spear"?
Perhaps I just have a dirty mind, but it seems like "blackboy"'s real etymology would be rather crude, referring to male anatomy. Does anybody have a definite source either way? Stan 01:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Wash your mouth out with soap, Stan. The Oxford English Dictionary quotes JL Stokes, Discoveries in Australia (1846): "[the trees are called Black Boys]... from the resemblance they bear, in the distance, to natives (sic)." Callophylla 09:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Joining pages
I reckon that there is not enough things in the other article and anyway it is pretty much the same stuff any way. The other article could be put in the intro —Preceding unsigned comment added by DanielVDV (talk • contribs) 09:51, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Usage of 'Blackboy'
This might not be the place to talk about this, as it doesn't add any enclycopeadic information to the page. Anyway, I was wondering what everyone else's thoughts were over the use of the term 'blackboy' in every-day language. Obviously, it stems from an archaic racist mind-set, and the term can easily be considered offensive. Nonetheless, it is still a term that I use when referring to the plant. I am a 22-year-old white middle-class Australian and have grown up on a bush property in the hills of Perth since I was very young, and still live there. Anyway, I still call the plant a blackboy whenever I talk about it. I consider myself a non-racist, and when I use the term, there is no racist intent whatsoever. So what am I to do? If someone talks to me about a grasstree, it takes me some time to figure out what they're on about. Should I stop using this term? I feel an attachment to the term itself, so I would prefer not to stop using it. I know this isn't specifically encyclopaedic discussion, but it is a difficult one. Hmmmm. 144.139.121.117 (talk) 10:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Not difficult at all. While it may no longer be appropriate to use the term "blackboy". It was, and has been used, for Xanthorrhoeas, and people seeking to read earlier writings and understand them need to know how it was used.  The racist past (and present) needs to be discussed, not wiped out, because a word 'should' not be used.  MargaretRDonald (talk) 20:55, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 10:58, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

symbiotic relationships
This section may well be poorly labelled. However, it discusses two important facts relating to Xanthorrhoea and to Western Australian plants: 1) the problem of dieback, and 2) the mycorrhizal fungi necessary to so many Australian plants in our impoverished soils. I do not understand why editors remove referenced, and relevant text. Rewrite, reorganise, by all means, but deletion of hardwon information, seems to me to be contrary to the aims of Wikipedia. MargaretRDonald (talk) 20:50, 13 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I have reverted the edit - as a west oz person who has watched some areas degenerate very badly from dieback anything that explains or includes material about endemic flora of western australia and the relationships between plants and the organisms involved is valid.

Inadequate explanation given in edit summary - and no reply yet, I believe such an edit needs to be reverted. Any justification for removal will need something substantial. JarrahTree 09:13, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

This was probably a slip up, that is what the edit summary indicates; assuming that is what happened also works. The message does not seem to have been ignored. I'm looking over and reading some sources, any suggestions or contributions would be helpful. I probably have something on dieback, but the ref ought to be to the genus or qualified with known impact on species. — cygnis insignis 12:22, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've refactored a lot of the content, nailed down anything contentious, and tagged some lines I should be able to cite. There is some duplication and lot of stuff missing, but I will pause to let other contributors have their say. cygnis insignis 17:10, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Pointless section in Taxonomy
In the third paragraph of the Taxonomy section the sentences are poorly written and have no citation:

"The Aboriginal people called the plants Balga because after a bush fire had ravaged the land, the blackened trunk of the Xanthorrhoea would be revealed beneath the burned lower leaves, and would resemble a child like black figure.[citation needed] Others[who?] believe that the plant, with its bush fire blackened trunk and long flower spike resembled an Aboriginal boy wielding a spear. "

I suggest this section should be removed as it is not up to standard with the rest of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.182.234.7 (talk) 05:00, 26 May 2022 (UTC)