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SUPPOSED POISONOUS PLANTS—WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 911 
and F. B. Guthrie’s description and analysis of the “ Darling 
Pea,” “Indigo,” “Cranky Pea,” &e. (Seeainsona galegifolia, R. Br.), 
Agricultural Gazette, 1V, 84 (1893)]. This paper also contains 
notes of the experiences of a number of New South Wales and 
Queensland graziers in regard to the plant. Quite recently, the 
West Australian Government has been investigating some sup- 
posed poisonous plants. [See the fourth Annual Report of the 
Bureau of Agriculture of Western Australia (1897)]. 
In many parts of Western Australia the pastures are com- 
posed of a great variety of plants which, in many respects, are 
dissimilar to those found in other countries. Amongst such a 
diversity of herbage it can easily be supposed that when any 
horses, cattle, or sheep have died in a somewhat mysterious way, 
different kinds of this vegetation have at one time or another been 
suspected of having poisonous properties. During very dry 
seasons, when the more tender grasses and herbage are dried up, 
the green leaves of many trees and shrubs offer a tempting bait 
to pasture animals, and are greedily eaten by stock, though there 
is still much to be cleared up with respect to the actual value of 
certain of them. Even in the same district, some persons will 
assert that a particular species of plant is poisonous, while others, 
whose testimony is equally reliable, will assert that it makes 
capital feed. There are, perhaps, no more conflicting statements 
made than with regard to certain species of the genus Hremophila 
and the allied one Myoporum. Whilst I must admit that very 
little is known of the physiological properties of the order Myo- 
porinee, still I cannot close my eyes to the fact that both sheep 
and cattle kept in country where these plants are plentiful eat 
them with avidity, and seem to thrive on them without any ill 
effects. Some persons assert that these Myoporinous plants 
develop their poisonous properties when in fruit; but whoever has 
studied the habits of the birds of the interior will assure you that 
certain of these greatly depend upon the fruits of these plants for 
their sustenance, which, in fact, are in some seasons, their prin- 
cipal food supply. Moreover, the aborigines, before they tasted 
the sweets of civilisation, used to eat the fruits of several MMyo- 
porinous plants. 
There is no doubt that when cattle and sheep are taken from 
one district to another, where the natural herbage is somewhat 
dissimilar, it must have, for a time at least, some effect upon their 
systems, especially when they are taken from rolling downs of 
grass to country where shrubs and herbs predominate ; and this 
brings to mind a question which, I think, has not received that 
attention from stock-owners that its importance justifies. It is 
the mechanical action which hard-foliaged shrubs have upon the 
larynx of both cattle and sheep that are not used to eating them. 
This irritation of the larynx not only brings on laryngitis, but 
