THE WEEDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



(/) They may ~be poisonous. In order to illustrate points, it is necessary, 

 at this place, to include some plants which are not, in strictness, weeds. 

 Reference may be made to the following papers which have appeared in the 

 Agricultural Gazette, of New South Wales, chiefly, though not exclusively, 

 on poison plants, with reference to New South Wales conditions: 



1. " Native Plants Poisonous to Stock," Feb., 1895, 2 pp. 



2. " Plants Reputed to be Poisonous to Stock in Australia," Jan., 1897, 



22 pp. 



3. Same, with supplementary matter. June, 1901, 32 pp. 



4. " Is the Tree Tobacco Poisonous ?" and " Garden Plants Poisonous 



to Stock," June, 1904, 3 pp. 



Dr. J. B. Cleland has a valuable resume of the whole subject in the third 

 Report of the Department of Microbiology, 1914, and the following paper 

 by the same author should also be referred to : " Experimental Feeding 

 with some alleged Poison-plants of New South Wales," Agric. Gaz., Jan., 

 1914, p. 65. 



We have a large number of suspected plants, and some of these, having 

 been duly tried, have been honourably acquitted. Other suspected plants 

 are brought under review from time to time, and some plants (e.g., grasses) 

 which at one time were not suspected, have now proved to be poison-plants. 



The literature in regard to the effects of poison-plants on stock and their 

 remedies, by competent veterinary surgeons, is scarce, and the two following 

 Bulletins are valuable, in spite of the fact that the individual plants referred 

 to are different to ours : 



1. " Prevention of Losses of Live Stock from Plant Poisoning," by 



G. Dwight Marsh, Farmers' Bull, U.S. Dept. Agric., No. 720. 



2. " Stock-poisoning Plants of California," by H. M. Hall and H. S. 



Yates, Bull. No. 249 of the Agric. Exper. Station, Berkeley, Cal. 



In this brief preliminary sketch I will, from the point of view of poison- 

 plants, classify them in the following way : 

 (i) Saponins. 



(ii) Cyanogenetic Plants (Prussic Acid). 

 (iii) Narcotics. 

 (iv) Hemlock. 

 (v) Suspected plants. 

 (vi) Poison-plants concerning which further knowledge is required. 



(i) Saponins. 



If my readers will turn to my "Forest Flora of New South Wales," Part 

 53, page 55, they will find " A few notes on Saponins (Poisonous Vegetable 

 Soaps)." A Saponin is a member of a group of glucosides which are 

 characterised by the property of producing a soapy lather, and most of them 

 (for there are many) are poisonous. 



In Part 52, page 31, of the same work is an account of the " Fish-poisons 

 of the Aborigines," and some of the poisons there enumerated are Saponins. 

 A chemical investigation of Australian plants, with the view of ascertaining 

 the presence of a Saponin, would be of interest, and would probably cause 

 some surprises, in view of the fact that certain Australian plants in which 

 this substance has already been found were not previously suspected of being 

 poisonous. 



