OXENBLOOD’S CYCLOPEDIUM OF AUSTRALIA, 1931

Camels

The largest marsupial to live on land, the Camel carries its young in one or two humps on its back. They thrive on saltbush and acacias, and are readily pressed into domestic service, though this rarely occurs owing to the difficulty in finding a big enough apron.  

OXENBLOOD’S CYCLOPEDIUM OF AUSTRALIA, 1931

Canthium

Canthium are a large genus of the family Rubiaceae, consisting of shrubs often arborescent and typically tropical. The flowers are in clusters; calyx-toothed, corolla-tube short and four lobed. Their fruit is a compressed, globular drupe with one or two stone-like seeds.

            In the late 19^th century it was fashionable amongst fops, cads and women to wear a canthium buxifolium (owl-head tree) by the breast pocket, or any other enclosure in which breasts were kept. Such an adornment would signal to others in the know that the wearer was either an invert or a milkman; later, the Royal Commission for Extremely Secret Signals (1911) forced the milkman to demonstrate their secret shame with a sprig of Beefwood fixed raffishly behind the ear with a drawing pin. The heady days of the canthiestes were, however, the 1890s, when decadence and gallantry were happy bedmates. There was even a club in the heart of Punchbowl, Sydney’s bohemian district at this time, at which all the furniture was made from canthium lucidum, a nicely-marked yellow wood. In the midst of a sinful waltz, pale-faced young men with dreamy, opiated expressions would lightly beat their bad chums with planks of pinkish, darkly-streaked canthium latifolium. Many of the attendees at soirees or singing-dinners at this club – known locally as the Globular Drupe – are now respectable bishops in regional churches around the country. They prefer to spend their time in ministering to the masses and assisting the compilers of Cyclopedia, rather than dream of those hot, hot nights grasping a piece of rough-hewn canthium coprosmoides (box-face wormwood) in the left hand, a crystal goblet of absinthe and cola in the right, and trying to remember the first seven lines in the captions to the cartoons in Punch while deciphering the last nine.

            Canthium branches are sometimes thorny. In addition to the woods mentioned above, Canthium Buxifolium is a light-coloured wood; the wood of Canthium Oleifolium is capable of a high polish, as a certain senior cleric in western Victoria is well aware. 

OXENBLOOD’S CYCLOPEDIUM OF AUSTRALIA, 1931

Joseph Tice Gellibrand

Joseph Gellibrand, known to his pals as ‘Aeroplane’, was born in 1786 and died in 1837. He was made attorney general of Tasmania in 1823, no doubt a 14-year appointment. He established the first supreme court of Van Dieman’s Land in 1824, expressing the hope that ‘its first thirteen years will be particularly interesting’. Soon, Gellibrand was embroiled in a controversial debate over a difficult point of law under which he had asserted his right to be not only judge, jury and executioner but also plaintiff. This led to a purple Royal commission and the demolition and rebuilding of the entire city of Hobart to include the Cat and Fiddle Arcade. It was at this time, on a whim based entirely on fancy, Gellibrand allied himself with John Batman in a plan to explore the ocean north of the colony, where, they were convinced, a large landmass existed.

            The two set out by punt across the Straits on 11 January 1827, arriving at Westernport in the afternoon. Gellibrand’s first words on landing were that he really was going to pack a lot into the next decade, but his constant shrill nagging of Batman – ‘is this a good place for a village? Is this?’ forced the reluctant superhero to send his friend back to Hobart. In 1836, having done all the things he had ever hoped to do including riding on a railway and filling up on fairy floss, Gellibrand returned to Port Phillip to attempt to reconcile the claims of Batman and his arch nemesis, Fawkman, to the area. This time the punt ride took him a year and he arrived on 21 February 1837. Attempting, foolishly, to ride from Corio Bay to the Yarra by way of the You Yangs, he lost his way and has not been seen since.

            In 1922, the manufacturers of a new jelly product, searching for an appropriate title, heard of Gellibrand’s nickname and decided, in tribute to this directionless explorer and quaintly arguably corrupt barrister, to call it ‘Aeroplane’ Jelly. The little girl who sang the famous radio commercial for the product, young Beryl Streep (aged 7) was a relative of Gellibrand’s. Inasmuch as they were both Anglo.

OXENBLOOD’S CYCLOPEDIUM OF AUSTRALIA, 1931

Joseph Tice Gellibrand

Joseph Gellibrand, known to his pals as ‘Aeroplane’, was born in 1786 and lived until 1837. He was made attorney-general of Tasmania in 1823, no doubt a 14-year appointment. He established the first supreme court of Tasmania in 1824, expressing the hope that ‘its first thirteen years will be very interesting’. Then, on a whim no doubt based on fancy, allied himself with John Batman in a plan to explore the ocean north of the colony, where, they were convinced, a large land-mass existed.

            Gellibrand’s irritating habit of joking with Batman that ‘if you’re Batman, I must be Robin’ or ‘from a big Aeroplane to your wee Robin’ notwithstanding, the two set out by punt across the Straits on 11 January 1827, arriving at Westernport in the afternoon. Gellibrand’s first words on landing were that he really was going to pack a lot into the next decade.

OXENBLOOD’S CYCLOPEDIUM OF AUSTRALIA, 1931

Tasmanian Rabbit 

The Tasmanian Rabbit is, astonishingly, not a rabbit at all but a marsupial donkey, seven or eight times the size of the domestic or homebody rabbit.

            The Rabbit, easily identifiable by its large horizontal brown stripes and its piercing, inchoate cry, has proven itself a nuisance to those attempting to convert the island’s harsh and rugged forest into productive paddocks, fields and swards. While it does not pray on crops or livestock – its natural diet is disease-carrying insects snatched from the air and detritus from the soil – the Rabbit annoys Tasmanians aesthetically, cluttering the landscape with unexpected appearances and trampling over bush flower arrangements.

            Deacon Pilt of Murrumbidgee, who recently visited what is increasingly becoming known as the ‘beet sugar isle’ due to its prosperous industries soon to rival the cane sugar crops of the Kimberley, writes: ‘I disembarked at Strahan on the 10^th, a delightful town marred only by the presence of the radical Country Women’s Association, a group apparently committed to establishing the right of women to form an association which, by its very title, excludes the stronger sex.

‘Whilst walking along the main street, I saw some unusual animals, striped horizontally in brown and otherwise a sandy colour, catching mosquitoes. I inquired of a local larrikin (ill-dressed in dungarees and carpet slippers) the exact nature of the beast, to which he replied, “Them’s the Tasmanian Rabbit, surr. I can sell you some pelts my family has varnished.’ I did not enquire where his kin had varnished to, but instead bundled him into care lest he, too, should varnish.’

            The Tasmanian Rabbit doe has up to seven kittens at a litter, and carries them in a pouch below her head for the first twelve months of their life. She nests at ground level in the warm craters that dot the surface of Tasmania, while the male brings her food which he regurgitates from a hollow inside his snout. The kittens are mature at 17 months.

See also: Country Women’s Association, Referendum on; Flower Arrangements; Strahan, Tas