358 



MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



after having eaten it. It usually takes them about a week to recover, during which tims 

 they are unfit for work, and especially so during the first three days." 



Captain Kingsbury, of the Sixth United States cavalry, under date of March, 1890 

 wrote me from Fort Stanton that the sleepy grass affected nearly all his horses at two 

 camping places, it was hard work to make them walk. 



The similarity of symptoms, whether observed in Coahuila or in New Mexico is 

 certainly remarkable, and furnishes strong evidence of the substantial accuracy of the 

 observations as reported. It would seem, then, reasonably established that this plant 

 possesses narcotic or sedative properties, afi[ecting principally horses, but also cattle and 

 probably other animals; that animals are not fond of it but eat it inadvertently or when 

 under stress of hunger; that cases of poisoning occur especially in the spring, when the 

 radicle and lower blades first come up, and that the active principle resides in these 

 blades, and perhaps only during that season. 



8. Avena, L.jOats 



Annual or perennial grasses, usually with flat leaves and panicled spikelets; 

 spikelets 2, many-flowered, or rarely 1-flowered; lower flowers perfect, the up- 

 per staminate or imperfect; empty glume unequal, membranaceous and per- 



Fig. 148. Wild Oats (Avena fatua). a 

 empty glumes; b, flowering glumes. (U. S. Dept. 



