Wattle - Definition and Overview

Wattle has several meanings:

• In engineering terms, originally wattle referred collectively to the flexible rods, branches or twigs from various plants woven together to make fences, walls and roofs (see wattle-and-daub). In civil engineering terminology today, a wattle is a form of erosion control typically used as a best management practice (BMP) to reduce sediment in run-off. A wattle is often constructed of natural plant materials such as hay bales, or plant material grubbed from a construction site and arranged in piles on a downflow slope.
  

  

  A large shrub of the widely cultivated Cootamundra Wattle, Acacia baileyana
• In Australia, the word has become the common name for species of Acacia, probably because they were commonly used as wattles (see above) in the early period of settlement. Black Wattle is also the common name of the unrelated plant, Callicoma serratifolia.
• Wattle is also the name for a fleshy growth hanging from the neck or throat of a group of birds known as wattlebirds. This group includes chickens, turkeys and vultures, as well as some native species of New Zealand and Australia.