Austral. A name for many species of Eucalyptus (e.g., E. gigantea), which have a tough fibrous bark. Also attrib.
1802. Barrington, Hist. N. S. Wales, ix. 358. This [canoe] was formed of the Stringy bark.
1832. Bischoff, Van Diemen’s Land, ii. 22. The stringy bark is perhaps one of the most useful trees in the island.
1859. Cornwallis, New World, I. 168. A short ascent through stringy-bark forest.
1885. Hayter, Carboona, 4. She … made twine nets of the stringy-bark fibre.
b. The bark of any of these trees.
1859. Cornwallis, New World, I. 191. Other sheets of stringy-bark were then bent over the platform.
1880. Fison & Howitt, Kamilaroi, 196. Down to the waist they are all wound round with frayed stringybark in thick folds.
c. quasi-adj. Belonging to the ‘bush’ or uncultivated country.
1833. N. S. Wales Mag., I. 173 (Morris). The workmanship of which I beg you will not scrutinize, as I am but, to use a colonial expression, ‘a stringy-bark carpenter.’
1890. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Col. Reformer, xxiii. I’d give a tenner out of my own pocket they was all … back at Bowning or some other stringy-bark hole as is fit for ’em.
