SECTION I 



DEATH CAMAS 



Zygademis paniculatus and Zygadenus venenosus 

 PLANTS POISONOUS TO SHEEP AND CATTLE 



SUMMARY 



Death camas is a common poisonous plant of the sheep and cattle 

 ranges in Nevada. 



It is a low-growing bright-green plant related to the lilies and the 

 onions. It comes up in the very early spring from a bulb buried eight 

 inches or more in the ground. The bulb is much like an onion, but it 

 has no onion odor, and is covered with a thin black coating. The leaves 

 are long, slender, and grass-like. When the plants come up they look 

 a little like Indian corn ; but the leaf is narrower and more fleshy, and 

 it has a distinct ridge or keel on the under side. At first there appears 

 to be no stem ; but later a flower stalk is sent up bearing a long cluster 

 of pale yellow flowers. 



The first green shoots come up early in the spring before there is 

 grass on the range ; and it is at this season that sheep and some cattle 

 are poisoned. 



It takes from one-fourth to one-half pound of the leaves to make a 

 range sheep sick when the animal is confined in a pen ; it takes a much 

 larger dose, three pounds or more, to kill a sheep under the same condi- 

 tions. On the range where sheep are driven hard and have no chance 

 to rest and recover, smaller doses are probably often fatal. 



On the whole, however, under ordinary range conditions it must be 

 somewhat difficult for even one sheep in a band to obtain a fatal dose of 

 the death camas leaves; and it is probable that many losses thought 

 to have been caused by death camas were in reality caused by some 

 other plant. 



Sheep fatally poisoned by death camas froth at the mouth and 

 slobber freely, and occasionally vomit. They grow weak in the hind- 

 legs and stagger when made to walk. Within a few hours they become 

 very dull and weak, standing with head and ears drooping and the 

 back arched. Later, they go down and thereafter rise with difficulty if 

 at all ; becoming gradually weaker and usually dying within twenty- 

 four hours from the time of feeding. 



Cattle show much the same set of symptoms; but are apt not to 

 froth at the mouth and drool as much as sheep. When in good condi- 

 tion they vomit so freely that they recover within two or three days. 



In our experiments we did not succeed in killing any young cattle 

 with death camas. Doses of three-eighths of a pound to two pounds 

 made the animal sick, but caused prompt and profuse vomiting which 

 brought about a fairly rapid recovery. On the range, death probably 

 occurs only when half -starved cattle eat a considerable quantity under 

 conditions where the system is too weak to throw off the poison or 

 where weak animals, driven hard, are poisoned and get no chance to 

 rest and recpyer. 



There is no known remedy for death camas poisoning; and even if 

 an antidote were discovered, it is not likely that it could be used sue- 



