22 Forage Plants of Australia. 



ORDER 



SWAINSONA PHACOIDES, BENTH. 

 "Phaca like Swainsona." 



Flora Austr., Vol. II, p. 217. 



A PEBENINTAL, with procumbent or ascending stems of 1 to If feet hoary 

 pubescent as also are the leaves. The compound leaves consist of 9 to* 13 

 leaflets, which are somewhat variable in shape, but mostly narrow, oblong, or 

 linear, and about 1 inch long. When they are obtuse or retuse they rarely 

 ever exceed i- of an inch in length. The flowers are rather large, of a purple 

 color, and are arranged in short racemes on long peduncles. 



This plant is found in nearly all the Australian colonies, but principally 

 in the arid interior, and so far as I have heard it is nowhere very plentiful. 

 It is a good forage plant for sheep when they partake of it along' with other 

 herbage ; but, like many other leguminous plants, it is liable to " blow " 

 them if they eat too ravenously of it when in a green state. This is 

 caused during the process of digestion, when volumes of gas are generated, 

 causing an abnormal distention of the stomach, preventing the lun^s 

 working freely and of course strangling the animals. Then the plant is put 

 down as a poisonous one. It might just as well be said that lucerne and 

 clover are poisonous for both cattle and sheep will "blow" when they eat 

 too ravenously of these plants in a green, state. There are two species of 

 Swainsona (S. greyana and S. galegifolia) that many stockowners in the 

 interior consider poisonous, and we often have had them sent to us as such 

 for identification. These are what are commonly known as "indigos," 

 " cranky peas," or " Darling peas ;" and it is said that when once sheep take 

 to eating them, they rarely ever eat grass again ; consequently they seldom 

 or never fatten, and are practically lost to their owners. So many conflict- 

 ing statements are made, however, with regard to these plants that nothing 

 but a long series of experiments and careful observation could clear up, and 

 practically set at rest for all time, the doubts at present existing. The late 

 Mr. K. T. Staiger, Government analyst of Queensland, experimented with 

 these plants, and found they possessed powerful sudorific properties. But, 

 as far as we are aware, none of the animals died of poisoning that he 

 experimented upon. I think there has not been sufficient importance 

 made of the fact, that when sheep or cattle are travelling in different 

 country, and browsing upon other kinds of herbage than that they have been 

 accustomed to, it must have for a time at least some material effect upon 

 their systems, and the more weakly ones must feel this change, if for the 

 worse, more acutely than those animals having a vigorous constitution. With 

 regard to these conflicting statements Mr. J. B. Bettington, of Brinley 

 Park, Merriwa, writes to the department as follows : " I do not regard it 

 as such a scourge as some do, and I do not think that healthy sheep eat it 

 (salt is an antidote to it), or if they do they w T illnot suffer any ill effects from 

 it. I have killed many sheep suffering from what is popularly called " pea- 

 eating " and have always found them full of worms, but w r hether the worms 

 are caused by eating the pea, or the worms in the sheep cause them to eat 

 the pea, I cannot say." The plant under notice produces an abundance of 

 seed, which germinates readily under ordinary conditions. The seeds are best 

 sown after rainfall during the spring months. 



