wilga

A lone wilga tree stood nearby; Father Ralph indicated it with his cigarette.

The Thorn Birds McCullough, Colleen 1977

He got down from his horse, tied the animal securely to a tree and sat beneath a wilga to wait it out.

The Thorn Birds McCullough, Colleen 1977

Nearby was a big stand of trees, stringybark and iron-bark and black box, an occasional wilga on its outskirts.

The Thorn Birds McCullough, Colleen 1977

Not far from where he sat with the down-dropping wilga leaves clashing restlessly in the rising wind was a small collection of dead stumps and logs surrounded by tall grass.

The Thorn Birds McCullough, Colleen 1977

The parched wilga caught and the gum resin at its tender heart exploded outward.

The Thorn Birds McCullough, Colleen 1977

The foliage grew so close to the ground that sheep could reach it easily, the result being that every wilga bottom was mown as straight as a topiary hedge.

The Thorn Birds McCullough, Colleen 1977

Every so often they would lift their muzzles to the sky, flare their nostrils to take in the scent of hot light on Drogheda-like grass, dream a little that they were back there, walking toward a wilga in the daze of noon to lie down through the worst of it, read a book, drowse.

The Thorn Birds McCullough, Colleen 1977

There was a little wilga as black and crinkled as a pickaninny’s mop, and the remains of a great stump standing close to the charred boundary.

The Thorn Birds McCullough, Colleen 1977

Sharing the family passion for reading didn’t endear Riverview to them at all; a book could be carried in a saddlebag or a jacket pocket and read with far more pleasure in the noonday shade of a wilga than in a Jesuit classroom.

The Thorn Birds McCullough, Colleen 1977