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There are 2 results of your search for cat head1.

cat head1


noun
a. a low-growing plant (Emex australis) having many hard, sharp, spiny seeds that are extremely painful to step on and which will sometimes even puncture through shoe soles.
b. one of these seeds. Compare bullhead, California puncture weed, caltrop, cat's eye1, double-gee, goat's head, three-corner jack.

Contributor's comments: I reckon this is NSW equivalent for bindi eye.

Contributor's comments: First heard in Collarenebri, widespread in rural NW NSW, but almost unknown in Sydney.

Contributor's comments: We don't have cat heads here in Geelong, but where I was brought up on a property 110 km north of Ivanhoe N.S.W. we called the burr a cat head.

Contributor's comments: The term cats eye is not used in Peak Hill, but rather the term cathead is used to describe the burr.

Contributor's comments: I agree with the comment from the person from around Parkes. The plant with the horrible 3 pointed stabbing burr has been referred to as a cathead by my friends and I. Reflectors on roads are cat's eyes.

Contributor's comments: I have lived in Eastern NSW all my life and the burr in question has always been known as cathead.

Contributor's comments: Cat's eye - I haven't heard I grew up on the fringe of this area - we called them cat heads - if you look at them they look like a cat's head rather than a cat's eye.

Contributor's comments: In the Hunter region around Maitland, the term "Cathead" is used to describe the burr, not "cat's eye". "Cat's eye" refers to the reflective disks on roadside markers.

Contributor's comments: [These were an] occupational hazard when I was stacking hay bales on the NSW Central Coast in the late 70s. Had not seen one until it stuck into me so assume I brought the word with me from western Sydney/Liverpool which I left in 76.

Contributor's comments: I grew up on a property in Central North NSW (near Moree), my parents were born and bred about an hour East of there (near Warialda) and what you are describing as a cat's eye, we called a cat-head. Hideous things!

Contributor's comments: [New England informant] Bindy-eye was fairly common in the '70's, but has virtually died out. The sharp burrs were called 'cat heads'.

Contributor's comments: I grew up in Western Sydney knowing these as "Three Corners" I have since become aware that they are the same as catheads, and this is the word used where I live now. The Three Corner useage may have been a family peculiarity, as I have rarely if ever heard it outside the family. They prevented me from going barefoot as a child.

Contributor's comments: Where I live, Wentworth, far west NSW, I have never heard this referred to as California puncture weed, just puncture weed. (I'd never heard the term till I moved here about 8 years ago). This seems the commonest usage here but I've also heard it referred to as cats head.

Contributor's comments: We called them cat's heads growing up in western NSW and were constantly repairing punctures in our bike tyres thanks to them. Mostly referred to caltrop in the Southern Flinders where we live now.

cat head2


Small ferns of various species growing in the understory of temperate rainforest: The snake dissapeared into the catheads.