A big run of 100 x 19mm was a chance to respond to market clamour for the ‘dark’ end of the messmate output.
5 x packs of messmate - ash blend and 
5 x packs of messmate - blackbutt blend. 
The ‘dark’ end being a deep nutty caramel and mid-brown toned mix. What’s in it? Dark messmates, blackbutt. Mmmmm ... $59.00/m2.

When HMS ships Resolution  and Discovery  rounded the south coast of Tasmania on Cook’s third voyage in the year of Our Lord 1777, and approached the steeply-wooded southern shores of Bruny Island, they beheld towering eucalypts rising 80mtrs with trunks as true as a ship’s mast. These held their attention longer than landfall might engage a sailor’s interest - having run many icy leagues east with the prevailing winds and then north from the high 60 degrees of latitude.

Leaf, bud and calyx specimens were collected and returned with the ships to England. The distinction of describing the species for the taxonomic record, fell to a French naturalist, L’Heritier de Brutelle. The asymmetry of leaf and stem inspired the name Eucalyptus Obliqua  - the first of the genera named - and the tree which became known as messmate by later colonists. 

This free exchange of science between naturalists in England and France - belying political tensions in the Napoleonic era - may not have lasted. In some quarters, the discovery of messmate forests spawned a hope that these southern lands would become a source of masts and spars for the massive industry of shipbuilding for war purposes. Two thousand oaks and many pines were required to build a single frigate. Worse. The dark arts of war required that timbers and yards available to the enemy, be pillaged and burnt on continental Europe at the same rate trees were harvested in England and the Baltic. Waste doubled by bloody purpose.

Ultimately, the Australian experience was a disappointment to the Royal Navy. The new colony failed to become a supplier of timber by the end of the Napoleonic era. A reference in Bush Wanderings  (1861) to ‘a species of bastard gum - or messmate, as we call it’ - may be the first written record of the name used in reference to a native tree. J.H. Maiden in Forest Flora  (1904), explains that a tree is known as messmate 

‘..because it is a mess-mate of, or associated with, other rough-barked trees’.

Regrowth stands of messmate, Central Highlands, Victoria

Messmate is clearly an early appellation that arose when key members of a forest group were being identified, but other recognisable types had not been fully delineated. In years to come, when the taxonomy - particularly the eucalyptus genus - was more complete, many older common names, like messmate, were retained.

Maybe ‘survived’ is a better word than retained. With the advent of commercial kiln drying (1928) - allowing mills to produce seasoned flooring and furniture timbers, the word messmate was spurned. The family of ashes - mountain ash, alpine ash and messmate were supplied as a mixed species board under the name Tasmanian Oak, due to an acceptable resemblance to European Ash in a quartersawn board. The very name had a respectability messmate could never equal. 

For seventy years, the word messmate was never used for flooring or furniture board. Only in the backwoods were the qualities of messmate fence posts briefly discussed over a Champion ready-rubbed or a mug of tea.

Bush pioneers drew on the purely male experience of the Royal Navy in understanding and nomenclature. To regard the forest in this aspect - trees as the rough-barked members of a ship’s mess. At first glance, a common rabble; individuals becoming defined over time but a blur of differences yet. It gives life to the very idea of the forest as a community and underscores key elements of the eucalypt forest - the symbiosis of species; patterns of occurrence; relation to terrain and aspect.

It were a blokey place back then, the bush. Independent by necessity and bent on forging its own determination of a new world without help from the Royal Society. This - in an era that follows Linnaeus and is contemporaneous with Mendel and Darwin - but geographically isolated. Disconnected. Suspended in time and place.

Messmate helps us understand common names as the result of observation and familiarity - minus a given or developed taxonomy. Neither Blackbutt, Woollybutt nor Bastard Tallowwood seem quite as hard to fathom as we take on board this purely bush culture of botany. Nor for that matter, Black Sallee and Tingle - or the hint of bloat in the humorously named Dead Rat tree (boab).

What impressions this bush made. The very untidiness of it. A dog’s dinner of a place. Seasonal shedding of bark; fluted ribbons of the stuff piling around the butt or exploding from the trunk in curled fragments; burnt basal bark after a fire; sentinel species in a family gathering; the orphan nature of others. Royalty rising tall from the gully floor. A quiet. Echoes of axe and call. A sense of complete disconnectedness.

Conscious of distinction, the bush developed its own quaint conceit as we see in this quote from 1939s Pioneers on Parade

You townies don’t look too sensible to us when you can’t tell ... a messmate from a brittle jack.

When did the urban culture embrace the word messmate and use it to describe appearance grade timbers? Dunno. Sometime in the 1980s, I suppose, when we began to abandon our fascination with the imported timbers of our early past. This was due in large part to individuals who both stood up and spoke up for native hardwoods and their natural appeal. Timber lovers, fellow travellers, messmates. 
 

 

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