Glossary of Terms used by Landsborough

Excoecaria: A good-sized bush or small tree occupying the low depressions above the saline alluvial ground on the Gulf of Carpentaria. It is milk-flowing but poisonous.

Erythrina: or coral tree.

Pigweed: Portulaca, or the native purslane, a creeping annual of a reddish-green colour and an excellent vegetable.

Triodia: Sometimes called spinifex, or porcupine grass, is a true desert plant, and at the end of each leaf it is so armed with short prickles that horses dread going through it, and stock never touch it except when it is very young or they are starving.

Gidya: A native name; the botanical name cannot be given without a specimen.

Western-wood Acacia: Same as Gidya.

Roley-poley: An annual salsolaceous plant. It grows in the form of a large ball, several feet high, on rich soil. It withers in the dry season, is easily broken off and rolled along by the winds, hence its name.

Cotton Vine: A plant, probably the same cynanolium of which the unripe milky pod is eaten by the natives about Lake Torrens.

Polygonum cunninghami: A very wiry shrubby bush, which always indicates that the ground where it grows is liable to be occasionally flooded. It is the same as the one from the Murray and Darling.

Mulga Scrub (an Acacia): This is frequently mentioned by Stuart; its botanical name is not known.