Xanthorrhoea glauca
Other common names
Kangaroo tail, Queensland blue grass tree, grey grass tree; cadi or gadi (a name from the Cadigal or Gadigal clan of the Eora); babang, binda, marrady or maybal (Wiradjuri); mingo (Dhurga).
Origin of the species name
Xanthorrhoea comes from the Greek words 'xanthos', meaning yellow and 'rhoea', meaning to flow, referring to the resin; glauca is the Latin word for blueish-grey-green and refers to the leaf colour.
Family
Asphodelaceae
Date planted
First planted in May 2020.
Lifespan
Trees can live for several hundred years.
General description
A small, slow growing (1-2 cm a year) evergreen plant, height to 5 m, spread 1 m, with a single trunk, though older or damaged plants may have multiple trunks. Leaves are long (0.5-1.0 m), narrow (1-5 mm), stiff and blue-green to grey in colour. They form a tussock at the top of a trunk formed from old leaf bases stacked on top of each other and held together by resin. Old leaves often hang down to form a skirt around the trunk unless burned in bushfires.
The protective thatch of leaves at the crown then grows rapidly using sugars stored in the trunk. Masses of small white to cream flowers, which produce an abundance of sweet nectar, develop on long woody spikes (1.0-2.5 m) in spring, especially after fire. Seed pods form along the spike.
Natural distribution and habitat
Xanthorrhoea glauca is native to south-eastern Australia in Queensland, NSW, ACT and Victoria. It grows in coastal heathlands and wet and dry forests in free draining, nutrient poor soils. It is drought, frost and fire tolerant.
Conservation status
IUCN - Least concern.
Uses
Indigenous Australians use many parts of the plant. Flower spikes are soaked in water to make a lightly sweet drink and the soft leaf bases are eaten.
The dried flower spike is used to make a base for a fire drill to start a fire using friction. The spike can be used to make spear shaft, as a torch to burn country as part of sustainable land management or to light the way in the dark. The seeds are ground into flour. The resin is used as a glue (heated and melted) for making weapons and holding grass rope in place.
The tree can be planted as a garden feature and, with care, may be burned to remove dead leaves and expose a blackened 'trunk'.
Planting pattern
The pattern is representative of sap/resin flow, resin collected for use by First Nations Peoples.