I04 



Journal of Agriculture. 



[lo Feb., 1909. 



character has not yet been conr.pletely di^-pelled it may be well to quote 

 the more important portions of his report, a revised edition of which 

 was published in the Agricultural Gazette of Nezv South Wales, September 

 1896. After mentioning that many losses of sheep had been attributed 

 to the supposed poisonous properties of the plant and that many specimens 

 of it were consequently sent to the Stock Office, Sydney, Mr. Stanley in- 

 timates that during his inquiry he failed to find any one acquainted with 

 the symptoms of illness produced or with the fost-mortem appearances 

 of animals alleged to have been poisoned. The report proceeds :-— 

 '■ Its evil reputation may be traced to two sources; first, under certain 

 circumstances, to be detailed later on, it may cause fatal indigestion; 

 secondly, botanists classify it with an acrid poisonous family, the 

 Eufhorhiaceoe. In structure it is allied to this group, but it has none of 

 the caustic medicinal elements that distinguish the order. 



" Baron von Mueller gave the plant 

 a bad reputation, in consequence of 

 the known properties of the order to 

 which it belonged, and he was 

 confirmed in his opinion by the 

 voluminous correspondents who inun- 

 dated him with specimens of the 

 plant and statements of losses in 

 stock which he received year after 

 year from all parts of Australasia. 

 Messrs. Bailey and Gordon, in their 

 book on " Reputed Poisonous Plants 

 in Queensland," give this plant a 

 very bad character, but Mr. Gordon 

 has since refuted it. 



' ' There can be no doubt that losses 

 of sheep do occur from eating this 

 plant, but there is no reason to con- 

 sider it the hete noir of Australian 

 herbage, as I shall prove later on. 

 I will now give my views as a 

 veterinarian from practical observa- 

 tion. I have noticed the wide- 

 spread distribution and hardy nature 

 of the plant. Euphorbia Drummondii, 

 which is probably eaten by tens of 

 thousands of sheep every day in the 

 various Colonies of Australasia. 



'■ It flourishes all the year round, 

 resists drought, and rapidly shoots 

 up after light rain, then being tender 

 and tempting herbage. It is well 

 known that sheep after a drought or from enforced hunger will eat 

 greedily, gorging themselves with several young succulent plants, such as 

 clover, lucerne, green wheat, trefoil, thistles, mallow, wild parsnip, or 

 any other succulent green food that may be so rapidly swallowed as to 

 distend the first stomach, then chemical action proves stronger than the 

 vital functions, causing indigestion, fermenting in the stomach, distending 

 the abdomen, producing mechanical pressure on the vital organs, and death 

 from suffocation. Such deaths are not due to poison, but are purely 



EUPHORBIA DRUMMONDII, BOISS. 



