560 MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



Distribution. Widely planted as an ornamental tree. It produces valuable 

 timber which is extensively used for posts. This species is, however, badly 

 infested with the borer. 



Robinia vlscosa Vent. Clammy Locust 



A small tree with rough bark; stipules short, occasionally spiny; twigs and 

 petioles glandular; leaves 11-25, stalked; leaflets obtuse and mucronate; nearly 

 smooth; racemes dense; flowers in rather dense racemes, pinkish, not fragrant; 

 pedicels glandular, hispid; pod hispid. 



Distribution. Southwestern Virginia to Georgia, occasionally escaped from 

 cultivation northward. 



Poisonous properties. The bark and leaves of this species contain a power- 

 ful poison which has proved fatal to persons eating them. Children have been 

 poisoned by eating the roots. It is true, however, that the flowers of the plant 

 are often eaten with impunity and that bees collect fro'm them large quantities 

 of nectar. Dr. Rusby states that the occasional poisonous properties of honey 

 are due to its origin in these flowers, though there are gool theoretical reasons 

 for doubting this. The bark of young twigs is sometimes pounded to a pulp, 

 and used to make a tincture which is used in medicine as a tonic and cathartic, 

 while the medicinal use of the flowers is mildly narcotic. It contains the sub- 

 stance robinin C 33 H 40 O 19 an aromatic glucoside which resembles the glucoside 

 quercetrin, and is found chiefly in flowers, also the substance obigenin C 15 H 10 O 6 

 -J-H..O. The seeds are also poisonous, and Dr. Millspaugh quotes Dr. Shaw 

 as follows, in regard to the symptoms produced by poisoning from eating the 

 seeds: "Inability to hold the head upright, nausea and attempts to vomit, with 

 a tendency to syncope, when in an upright position; voice, respiration and 

 heart's action feeble, as from exhaustion, a painful paralytic condition of the 

 extremities, which become shrunken on the fifth day. All the symptoms seemed 

 like those produced by a long-continued diarrhoea, though in this case purg- 

 ing was not present." Dr. Johnson states that the symptoms of poisoning are 

 those of Belladonna poisoning, a fact also noted by Dr. Waldron in the case 

 of a horse that had eaten the bark; Friedberger and Frohner state that the 

 animals have colic, tympanites and paralysis. 



Dr. Rusby comments upon the poisonous character of the common black 

 locust as follows : 



Of this Dr. Johnson records that by eating the roots children are poisoned with 

 symptoms like those of Belladonna poisoning, and that the bark and leaves are emetic. 

 Prof. F. W. Power has experimented upon himself with the stem bark of this tree, proving 

 the very serious effects which it produces, and he has examined its composition with the 

 result of showing that the poisonous constituent is an albuminous substance, thus confirm- 

 ing the general character of that family, the Lcguminosae. The most positive and prom- 

 inent case recorded in regard to this article is that of Dr. Z. P. Emery. In the latter 

 part of March, 1887, thirty-two boys, inmates of the Brooklyn Orphan Asylum, were poisoned 

 at one time by eating a bark which was being stripped in the vicinity for the making of 

 fence posts. None of the cases terminated fatally. The prominent symptoms, stated in 

 the order of their occurrence, were the vomiting of a ropy mucous, flushing of the face, 

 dilated pupil, dryness of the throat, feeble pulse, extremities cool, face pale, vomiting of 

 blood, cold extremities, heart feeble and intermittent, face deathly pale and stupor. The 

 symptoms as I have named them are seen to be progressive. A rash similar to that of 

 Belladonna poisoning was also present, but very fleeting. In the beginning there was a 

 high fever. Treatment consisted of sinapisms over the stomach, subcarbonate of bismuth, 

 camphor and brandy. 



