78 THE WEED 8 OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



Confusion of name is especially to be regretted when a poison-plant may be 

 referred to. In most English speaking communities it goes under the name 

 of " Thorn Apple," and I would like to see the use of this name encouraged 

 by people who find Datura too much for them. In the United States it has 

 other names, which I have not seen used in Australia and which need not be 

 mentioned here, except " Jimson Weed " (a contraction of " Jamestown 

 Weed," from the North Carolina town), which is much employed in 

 American literature. 



Botanical Description. 



A rather tall, bushy annual. Leaves ovate, angular, irregular toothed or 

 lobed. Flowers solitary, shortly pedunculate. Calyx loosely tubular. Corolla 

 funnel ("trumpet") shaped, above 3 inches long, white. Capsule nearly 

 .globular, very prickly. 



Popular Description. A somewhat succulent, bright green, heavy-smelling 

 herb of 2 or 3 feet high, growing in waste places. The leaves are rather 

 large, irregularly cut or toothed, and paler on the underside. Flowers large, 

 white, usually described as trumpet-shaped. The fruit (the " prickly pod " 

 of farmers) is rather large, much rougher than a nutmeg grater, and it sheds 

 a large number of black, kidney-shaped seeds which have little dots over 

 them. 



Other Species. Ewart and Tovey ("'Weeds, &e., of Victoria") have a 

 figure of Datura/ Stramonium; while in the Queensland Agricultural Journal 

 for July, 1917, p. 31, C. T. White has useful notes on and photographs of 

 Datura Tatula, the Purple Thorn Apple (a species with purple stems which 

 is obtaining a rather firm hold in the colder parts of New South Wales), 

 D. ferox, a Thorn Apple new to Queensland, and D. Metel, the Hairy Thorn 

 Apple, not uncommon in Queensland, but not an escape in New South 

 Wales, as far as I .know. There is also a native species of Datura, viz., 

 D. Leichhardtii F.v.M., which is confined to Queensland. 



Confusion with the True Castor Oil Plant. A few years ago I started a 

 discussion in the papers as to whether this plant is poisonous, and to what 

 extent. The statements made were most of them very interesting, and I 

 tried to sift them out into (a) Thorn Apple or False Castor Oil Plant 

 (Datura Stramonium) and (fc) True Castor Oil Plant (Ricinus communis). 



Most of the correspondents referred to the Thorn Apple; a few, including 

 the following, evidently referred to the True Castor Oil Plant : 



From the contradictory evidence given, would it not be possible to suppose 

 that its poisonous properties depended somewhat on the district in which it 

 grew? Although introduced into the Loyalty Islands, its medicinal properties 

 are well known there. The natives, and also the Europeans, will chew from 

 half to a whole seed, throwing away the residue. In New South Wales, on the 

 other hand, I know of an instance where only a small portion of a seed was 

 eaten, resulting in terrible pains in the abdomen, accompanied by violent vomit- 

 ing. The plant is of great use for shade purposes in poultry runs, where I have 

 seen the young leaves eaten off with no ill-effects. 



The following two I will not be certain about, although I can make a 

 guess, as the True Castor Oil Plant is far more sensitive to cold than the 

 Thorn Apple. They were probably the latter. 



I distinctly remember that on one occasion, about two seasons ago, cattle 

 ate down quite a large and well-grown patch of this plant without suffering any 

 ill-effects whatever. They left only stalks about, from 1 foot to 18 inches high. 

 I cannot clearly recollect, but I think the plants could not have reached beyond 

 the flowering stage. (" Guabinga," Terra Bella, via Wellington, 21st November. 

 1907. ) 



