572 FIELD AND GARDEN PRODUCTS 



thick and oblong, the upper thin, broad, and heart-shaped. The 

 flowers are greenish-yellow and rather small. The three-seeded fruit 

 is conspicuous. It is a common garden plant, sparingly introduced 

 in wet ground in California and Texas, and in the Atlantic States 

 from New Jersey to West Virginia and North Carolina. 



The fresh milky juice is exceedingly acrid and the fruit is highly 

 purgative and poisonous. When used as a household remedy it often 

 provokes serious trouble. Women and children are not infrequently 

 poisoned by handling the plant and getting the juice on the face. 

 Cattle are quite resistant to its influence, but they are sometimes over- 

 come. Goats will eat the plant extensively if nothing tetter presents 

 itself, and it is said that their milk then possesses all of the venomous 

 properties of the plant. When applied to the skin the juice causes 

 redness, itching, pimples, and sometimes gangrene, the effect often 

 lasting more than a week. The seed taken internally in overdose will 

 inflame the mouth and stomach, and cause intense diarrhea and 

 vomiting. If the dose is sufficient, there will be nervous disorders, 

 unconsciousness, general collapse, and death. 



Snow on the Mountain (Euphorbia marginata). An annual 

 plant 2 to 4 feet high, differing most conspicuously from the pre- 

 ceding species in its more slender and less branching habit, and in 

 having its upper leaves broadly margined with white. Its general 

 aspect is far more pleasing to the eye, and on that account it is more 

 frequently gathered for decorative purposes. This spurge is a native 

 weed of the Great Plains from Montana to Mexico, and is spreading 

 eastward rapidly to Louisiana and through southern Minnesota and 

 Missouri to Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. It is cultivated con- 

 siderably for ornament, especially in the Northern Atlantic States, 

 where it has frequently escaped from cultivation. It has recently 

 been introduced as a weed into Germany. The poison of this plant 

 reaches the stomach so far as known only through the eating of 

 honey derived from its flowers. Large quantities of fall honey are 

 annually made unsalable in localities where the plant grows in 

 great abundance. The honey is hot and disagreeable to the taste, 

 but does not appear to be a very serious poison, its effects being con- 

 fined mostly to vomiting and purging. The milky juice, when it 

 gets on the skin, very often causes an itching inflammation, accom- 

 panied by pimples and blisters which last for several days. The 

 general effect is much like that observed in rhus poisoning, for 

 which it is sometimes mistaken. This blistering action is, in fact, 

 so decided that a few stock raisers in Texas use the juice to brand 

 cattle, it being held by them to be superior to a red-hot iron for that 

 purpose ; because the scar heals more satisfactorily. 



Poison Ivy (Rhus radicans). Poison oak; poison vine; three- 

 leaved ivy; poison creeper; mercury or markry (N. H. and N. J.) ; 

 black mercury (Me.) ; markweed (Me.) ; pickry (Me.). 



A climbing or trailing shrub (sometimes erect), with variable 

 three-foliate leaves, aerial rootlets, and greenish flowers, appearing 

 in May and June. The smooth, waxy, white fruit often remains 

 on the plant until late in winter. The leaves often resemble those/ 



