Talk:Spearwood, Western Australia

About Claim in article that suburb is 85% bushland & related matters

"suburb is 85% bushland"?

Spearwood is a completely urbanised suburb, with no bushland other than the usual suburban parks.

85% is an accurate estimate

<Comment. A look at "Spearwood, WA, Australia" in Google Earth clearly suggests it is no where near 85% bushland. The only significant remaining bushland (other than suburban parks) I believe are a few strips along the North-South running main road that you can see (Stock Road), and some near the wetlands further west towards the coast (however I think most of this is actually in Hamilton Hill, the suburb immediately north of Spearwood) End Comment>

Spearwood is not 85% bushland nor is it any more or less prone to bushfires than most of the inner and medium distant suburbs of Perth. 20-30 years ago those may have been true, but not today. Both then & now the bushland area & fire risk are NOT characteristics that set Spearwood apart from dozens of other Perth suburbs.

Edeline Street is currently no more or less remarkable than most streets in Spearwood.

Spearwood's relevance in Cockburn and the Perth Metro Area is that historically it is one of the several nodes of settlement within the Perth Metro Area from which settlement extended for in excess of 175 years until housing overlapped forming the greater area known as the Perth Metropolitan Area.

More relevant would be information that Cockburn is the location of the administration offices of the Cockburn City Council, of Azelia Ley homestead, of the maket gardens that previously dominated the area, etc. Both Spearwood & Cockburn have a rich & overlapping history.

I have long been bemused by the current Spearwood entry. When time permits I may contribute further to it. Lanyon 01:22, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

<comment. I agree with these comments. I was surprised and wondered what the motivation of the author was because it is clearly not right.

End Comment>

• As someone who works in this area I have to also question the statement that 85% of the suburb is 'bushland' - almost all of the former market gardens have been subdivided and converted into residential housing estates. The only remaining undeveloped areas are located around Watson's meat processing plant on Hamilton Road, as they fall within the odour buffer area of the plant - and none of these could be called 'scrubland'.Dan arndt 06:23, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Origin of the suburb name Spearwood

Removed from the article the statement "It was named by colonial settlers who noticed the native tea trees, scientific name Melaleuca lancialata chipolata, being used for spears by the Yugul Aboriginal people." as the information in that statement is unsourced, is suspect and apparently wrong in material details. The words substituted for that statement are sourced (as acknowledged) from Landgate (Department of Land Administration) though it would be desireable to establish, from reliable sources, what more is known of the local species to which the name Spearwood may have referred. It should be borne in mind, until shown otherwise, that when Landgate uses the term "bush" it may be referring to a single species or it may be using that word in the sense of an area of mixed native vegetation.Lanyon (talk) 23:00, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I have retained the removed statement on this talk page, and am taking time to explain the issues, because for over 9 years that statement has stood unsourced and un-contested and unfortunately it has been directly referenced by a number of others. These are the problem issues with the statement:-

(1) Examining the edit history of the article shows it was created as a stub in 2005 and remained that way until 31 July 2006 when over a 3 day period one user (the OP) added & developed a considerable amount of information. Almost all that information has since been discredited, amended or removed. By the 3rd day the OP had commenced adding material that was fanciful and that was apparently providing inappropriate (perhaps slanderous) information about identified persons. The OP is no longer a registered user under that name. It appears that only one user User:BoundaryRider queried the contents of the sentence and his amendment was immediately reversed by an IP only user. In all the circumstances the statement is sufficiently suspect to warrant removal but appears to be wrong in almost every particular. (see (2) & (3) hereunder.)

(2) The aboriginal reference. The OP first stated settlers had seen indigenous people making spears "from the native tea trees" then added the claim they were of "Nhulunboy tribe" before amending that to "Yugul Aboriginal people". The difficulty is that the two groups referred to are apparently in the Northern Territory. The aboriginal peoples of the Cockburn district are said to be the Beeliar Tribe of the Swan River Nyungars. This information, in various forms, is referred in many current government documents recognising aboriginal history, sites and associations with the area. (eg p14 "Bibra Lake - Landscape, Recreational and Environmental Management Plan" accessed at http://www.cockburn.wa.gov.au/documents/CouncilServices/Environment/Documents/1618-bibra_lake_management_plan.pdf) I speculate the OP took the word Spearwood, inferred it was a direct reference to wood for making spears and then gradually embellished the idea.

(3) The plant species reference stated as "Melaleuca lancialata chipolata". The OP put these 3 words together in that order albeit there were variations in the spelling. To begin with the species does not appear to exist. The word "chipolata" by itself is apparently a name applied to certain thin sausages. The word also apparently has some common use a a derogatory reference to a person or group of persons. Remove that word (as User:BoundaryRider tried to do) and it leaves "Melaleuca lancialata" or perhaps better "Melaleuca lanceolata". This species does exist. It's range includes Western Australia but thus far I have not found a reference to "Spearwood" being one of it's several common names. More tellingly I have been unable to find any reference to it growing in the Cockburn area. In an appendix to the June 2009 report "City of Cockburn Report for Market Garden Swamps Environmental Management Plan 2009 to 2019" (http://www.cockburn.wa.gov.au/documents/CouncilServices/Environment/Documents/2426-1617-final_mgs_emp-smaller.pdf) there appears a listing of every flora (including weeds) found in the management area. That area is in the heart of Spearwood and covers an extensive portion of the Spearwood area. Melaleuca lanceolata was not found or referenced however among many flora the following Melaleuca species were identified, often in abundance - Melaleuca cuticularis, Melaleuca rhaphiophylla, Melaleuca huegelii, Melaleuca cardiophylla, Melaleuca preissiana, Melaleuca systena, Melaleuca teretifolia, Melaleuca viminea. An odd absence for a species said to have caused the naming of a suburb. I speculate the OP simply equated the "lance" in "lanceata" with the "spear" in "Spearwood". In any event although there are many Melaleucas in Spearwood there is no source supporting those species as the Spearwood bush referenced in the name. Lanyon (talk) 01:37, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that detailed analysis, Lanyon. I have just remembered that "Spearwood" is not a Melaleuca at all; it's a Kunzea! Same plant family as Melaleuca (i.e. Myrtaceae). Spearwood is the common name for Kunzea glabrescens, which IS found in the City of Cockburn. (see link on FloraBase http://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/browse/profile/15498) I really hope this clears up the vandalism issue, but suspect there are other forces at work here. BoundaryRider (talk) 04:53, 2 December 2015 (UTC)