380 



MANUAL OF POISONOUS PLANTS 



Fig. 164. Bunch flower {Melanthium 

 virginicum). Common in low meadows 

 Eastern Iowa and southward. Often 

 mixed with hay and causes poisoning, 

 of horses. (Charlotte M. King.) 



At the place where I obtained these specimens the owner said he had cut the meadow 

 and fed hay off it for fifteen years and never had any trouble until this year. Hay cut 

 last fall seems to contain the poison; seed heads were fully mature; meadow is low 

 and wet. 



The following are the symptoms as described by the veterinarian*: Heart fast and 

 very weak; respiration shallow and labored; great muscular weakness; retching, consider- 

 able slobbering, some sweating; temperature was normal. The effect lasted three or four 

 hours, and the animal was stupid and lacked appetite for one or two days afterwards. 



The disease stopped when a ration of hay containing none of this weed 

 was fed. Since writing the above, Dr. Blanche, a veterinarian in Belle Plaine, 

 this state, found that horses fed with hay containing this plant "became ill 

 and acted as if they were crazy. The symptoms were much like those from 

 aconite poisoning." These bunchflowers have long been used to poison flies, 

 and Hyams, of North Carolina, says that they are poisonous to crows. The 

 M. latifolium and M. pariflorum have similar properties. According to 

 Chesnut the Indians of Mendocino County, California, use the soaproot or 

 Yuki (Chlorogalum pomeridianum) to stupify fish. This plant is closely re- 

 lated to Melanthium. 



