An Australian Aboriginal tree, also known as the leather wood or she-oak, valued for its hard wood.
From an Australian Aboriginal language, possibly from the Dharug or neighboring languages spoken in New South Wales. The word entered English through contact with Indigenous Australians and became a borrowed term for locally important timber.
Cooba wood is so hard and dense that it was traditionally used by Aboriginal Australians for tools and weapons, and later European settlers realized it was perfect for building and fuel—this is a word where Indigenous knowledge was literally embedded in the material reality of Australian forests.
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