Edit page | Page history | Printable version

Grass tree

(Science: botany) An Australian plant of the genus Xanthorrhoea, having a thick trunk crowned with a dense tuft of pendulous, grasslike leaves, from the center of which arises a long stem, bearing at its summit a dense flower spike looking somewhat like a large cat-tail. These plants are often called blackboys from the large trunks denuded and blackened by fire. They yield two kinds of fragrant resin, called Botany-bay gum, and gum Acaroides.

a similar Australian plant (Kingia australis).