desert oak

English

Noun

desert oak (plural desert oaks)

1. Various oaks found in desert regions.
   • 1884, Andrew Samuel Fuller, Practical Forestry:

     Var. frutescens, Engelmann, is a shrub from three to ten feet high, known in the Sierra Nevadas as Desert Oak.

2. (Australia) Any of several trees of dry parts of Australia, especially Acacia coriacea, Acacia sericophylla, and Allocasuarina decaisneana.
   • 1987, Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, Vintage, published 1998, page 144:

     We passed through a stand of desert oaks, which are a species of casuarina and look less like an oak than a cactus.

   • 1996, Doris Pinkington, Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, in Heiss & Minter, Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature, Allen & Unwin 2008, p. 169:

     Molly and Gracie spent a lovely weekend with their families digging for kulgu yams and collecting bunches of yellow flowers from the desert oaks, which they brought home to share with those who stayed behind to take care of the old people and the dogs.

References

• desert oak on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “desert oak”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

Anagrams

• kreasoted