MISCELLANEOUS DICOTYLEDONOUS PLANTS 95 



Tennessee. It is common on hill slopes in the Piedmont region west of 

 Philadelphia and in the pine barrens of New Jersey. 



Stagger-bush (Lyonia (Andromeda) mariana). A glabrous shrub 

 growing about two feet tall with deciduous, oblong, or oval leaves. The 

 flowers are white, or cream-colored, urn-shaped and produced in nodding 

 fascicles before the leaves are fully developed. The capsules are grayish 

 and persistent for some time. The stagger-bush occurs in low grounds 

 -from Rhode Island to Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas. Sheep have been 

 poisoned and killed by eating the tops and foliage of this plant, which 

 gets its name, because of the intoxication! of sheep and cattle by eating it. 



Rose Bay, or Great Laurel (Rhododendron maximum). The great 

 laurel is a tall shrub, or small tree forming thickets in the hilly and 

 mountainous parts of the eastern United States from Maine to Ohio and 

 south along the mountains to Georgia. It has large evergreen leaves 

 which being sensitive to cold below 2oF. turn down and incurl during 

 the coldest days of winter. The flowers are large, bell shaped, produced 

 in short racemes from scaly large winter flower buds. This species and 

 several other species, as R. californicum R. catawbiense, are poisonous 

 to stock. Cases of death of goats in the Himalaya mountains of India 

 are recorded from eating the leaves of Rhododendron cinnabarinum, 



General Considerations. All of the above described ericaceous plants 

 contain the substance andromedotoxin CsiHsoOio, a bitter glucoside 

 more poisonous than aconitin, and more emetic than emetin. It is a 

 narcotic poison. 



In the case of goats the symptoms are intense pain, diarrhoea, dis- 

 comfort, gritting of the teeth, salivation and frequently vomiting, while 

 there is trembling, spasms, vertigo, loss of power and death. Lander and 

 others report somewhat similar symptoms in cattle that have eaten freely 

 of any of the above shrubs. 



Chinese Primrose (Primula obconica). This plant is a native of 

 China, but is cultivated in greenhouses and out of doors in summer in 

 this country and Europe. Its leaves are all radical and cordate and 

 covered with glandular hairs. The flowers are borne in umbels at the 

 top of a slender scape 6-12 inches long. The glandular hairs" form a drop 

 of poison containing embelia acid, CyHaC^OH^CuHas, which is an 

 irritant causing eruptions on the skin of susceptible persons, similar to 

 those produced by poison ivy. The susceptible persons suffer from an 

 eczematous inflammation of the hands and face, and apparently there is 



