Patterson's Curse
WiktionaryText
Etymology
Said to be named after the Patterson family who had it as an ornamental garden plant which spread and took over adjacent previously productive paddocks. (Though this was not the first large outbreak.)
Proper noun
- The plant echium plantagineum.
- 1905: That 'Paterson's Curse' produces some feed is undoubted, but it is a smothering, rough, coarse plant ... the vernacular name 'Curse' shows what many people think of it. — J. H. Maiden, Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, xvi.268. Quoted in G. A. Wilkes, A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms, second edition, 1985, Sydney University Press, ISBN 0-424-00113-6.