Comments on: Mountain Ash

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 04 Nov 2023 06:54:59 +0000

In reply to Jag. It was fairly common to find Tassie Oak furniture in the 2000s along with a number of other native species, but locally made furniture is difficult to find these days in favour of imported furniture (both cheap and expensive). It is a beautiful looking: very light-coloured and tending to a warm cream in a raw state. It can however but can be easily dented with direct blows from dropped objects and the like. I have Tassie Oak floors in my kitchen and every dropped object has left a dent.

By: Jag

Jag — Sat, 12 Nov 2022 23:37:41 +0000

Hi,
we would like to know, why Victorian ash is not widely used for furniture?
thanks

By: Steven Sims

Steven Sims — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 02:09:13 +0000

In reply to Mark Dakins.

Australia has 800 species of eucalypt and 1000 species of acacia, so when dealing with Aussie hardwoods, there is a fighting chance it will be one or the other, whether Tasmanian Oak, Curly Budgeroo, Ironbark, or Ringed Gidgee :)

Yes we have many other interesting species too, many of which are not eucalypts but are related in the family myrtaceae. I’m still finding woods which are not commercially available but have local distribution and unique beauty and usefulness.

When europeans came here they dubbed various species as oak, ash, cedar, and so on; but this was usually based on superficial resemblance at best. Our First Nations people had their own names and taxonomy but that was all ignored of course.

By: Shannon Woodbury

Shannon Woodbury — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 05:10:09 +0000

What's confusing even to Australians is these European names are not just incorrect but also interchangeable. Tasmanian oak for example is called Victorian Ash when it comes from Victoria instead of Tasmania. What's even more confusing is that the 'Tasmanian Oak' you buy at hardware stores is actually the Tasmanian timber industry's name for timber that comes from three different species of eucalypt, harvested in three different regions of the state. From Wikipedia: "Tasmanian oak[1] refers to the hardwood produced by three trees: Eucalyptus regnans, Eucalyptus obliqua or Eucalyptus delegatensis, when it is sourced from the Australian state of Tasmania.[2] Despite the common name 'oak', none of the species are in the genus Quercus. (...) The species are also widely known by their common names. Eucalyptus obliqua is known as stringybark or messmate, Eucalyptus regnans is known as mountain ash, and the closely related Eucalyptus delegatensis is known as alpine ash or woollybutt." Talk about confusing! XD

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 19:58:38 +0000

In reply to rob snmith. Australian Magpies are not corvids, though they look similar.

By: rob snmith

rob snmith — Sun, 28 Jul 2019 01:56:45 +0000

Yes, like America and most other ‘settled by European colonisation’ counties, many places and things in Australia are named after places and things from ‘back home’. We have pine trees that aren’t pines, mahoganies that aren’t mahoganies and so on. (Magpies, that while corvids, aren’t the same as European Magpies. But they are black and white.) Similar looking things, often got named after things from the home country.

By: James Kidman

James Kidman — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 06:36:40 +0000

Europeans came to Australia and named things. Don’t get upset about common names, they don’t mean much. We also call this species Tasmanian Oak – hope this helps ;)

By: Mark Dakins

Mark Dakins — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 17:38:11 +0000

I am very confused by this entry. To me “mountain ash” ARE Rowan but are not “Eucalyptus”, they are “Sorbus” of the family “Rosaceae” and have been for hundreds if not thousands of years. How did an Australian tree supplant names that have been in use in Europe going back at least to the ancient Celts?