Dis-spiriting and emplacing Moodjar trees: Nuytsia floribunda in gin production in southwestern Western Australia

Moodjar (Nuytsia floribunda), a sacred Noongar tree from southWestern Australia, is known colloquially as the Christmas tree because it flowers at the end of the year. Moodjar is a place where our spirits go when we die, a food source in hard times and a women’s tree. Early 2022 media reported two distillery businesses in Western Australia utilizing Moodjar’s flowering for flavouring the spirit gin. This use angered Noongar peoples who sought to stop Moodjar’s use for this purpose. This paper explores the temporal and spatial significances of Moodjar for Noongar peoples; and the new emplacements and ethical quandaries that developed from using Moodjar in gin production. It explores historical botanical and anthropological writings and how scientific labelling of plants, like Moodjar, as ‘parasites’ influences plant geographies. This paper draws on vegetal and human-plant geographies, and plant philosophies to create the nomenclature plant-beings and plant-spirits geographies. The paper argues that plants have spirits and are spiritually significant.