DICOTYLEDONS AS POISONOUS PLANTS 59 



in the dried state it is nontoxic to horses. All parts of the European 

 plant are poisonous, but the root is especially so, and next the seeds and 

 the leaves of the plant. The toxicity varies with age and climate, but 

 slightly active when young. It is most active just before the flowers develop. 

 The cultivated plant is less poisonous than the wild, and the poison is 

 partly dissipated upon drying. The plant contains the toxic alkaloid 

 aconitin (Cs^yNOn) and also aconin (C 2 5H 4 iN0 9 ). Aconite is an 

 extremely valuable drug being used when taken internally as a depres- 

 sant slowing the pulse and lowering the blood pressure. In over doses it 

 produces death by respiratory paralysis. 



Buttercup (Ranunculus sp.). The hands of the writer were poisoned 

 by removing Ranunculus bulbosus from 70 per cent, alcohol in which the 

 tops with flowers had been preserve^ for class study. The inflammation 

 produced on the skin was a typical dermatitis resembling that caused by 

 the poison ivy, Rhus radicans. A number of species are known to be 

 poisonous when fresh, but the poisonous principle is volatile and is dissi- 

 pated on drying the plants, so that hay with included buttercups is non- 

 poisonous to stock, if fully dried. Boiling the plants also renders them 

 inocuous. The celery-leaved buttercup Ranunculus sceleratus, called by 

 the French Mortaux V acnes and Herbe sardonique, is considered to be the 

 most toxic species, and the toxicity seems to increase up to the time. of 

 flowering after which it decreases. The bulbous buttercup seems to vary 

 in its toxic properties having poisonous flowers, while the bulb-like rhiz- 

 ome becomes most harmful in autumn and winter. Ranunculus Ficaria, 

 the lesser celandine, has been the cause of the poisoning of three heifers, 

 while cattle have been poisoned frequently by the tall buttercup, R. acris. 



Poisons. Most of the species contain an acrid and bitter juice prob- 

 ably identical with anemonin, which has been obtained along with ane- 

 monic acid from the acrid crowfoot, R. acris. Some toxicologists assert 

 that the poisonous species contain the two alkaloids aconitin and delphinin. 



Symptoms. The buttercups are acrid, burning and narcotic causing 

 irritation of the mucous membrane, the intestinal tract becoming inflamed. 

 According to Cornevin, the celery-leaved buttercup induces colic, gastro- 

 enteritis, diarrhoea with black foul-smelling feces, vomiting in animals 

 which can do it, falling-off in milk yield in cows, nervous state, pulse 

 reduction and stertorous respiration, pupils dilated, feebleness, difficult 

 mastication, spasmodic movements of the ears, lips, etc., convulsions, 

 eyeballs sunken. Death follows the convulsions in six to twelve hours. 



