flax-stick

plural flax-sticks · alternative flax stick

1. New ZealandThe flowering stem of the New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax or Phormium cookianum).

   Rafts, or canoes, or “catamarans,” are still occasionally improvised by travellers or explorers in primitive parts of New Zealand, e.g. by Haast, who reports constructing “catamarans” of dead trees when flax-sticks were not obtainable.

   1869, W. Lauder Lindsay, On the Economical Value and Applications of the Leaf-Fibre of New Zealand Flax (Phormium tenax, Forst.): The Journal of Botany, British and Foreign, volume 7, page 46

2. AustraliaobsoleteslangA New Zealander.

   "I always thought Australia was all good country," mused the driver—a flax-stick.

   1896, Henry Lawson, “His Country–After All”, in While the Billy Boils, Sydney, N.S.W.: Angus and Robertson […], →OCLC, page 51