204 INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN FORAGE PLANTS. 



as 1823 by Achille Richard (" Histoire des medicamens, des 

 poisons et des alimens tires du regne vegetal," in two volumes). 

 Otherwise that work follows Jussieu's system, only the portion 

 comprising the Apetalse rendering that natural system, as a whole 

 imperfect. But what has been cursorily explained in these pages 

 forms but few of the thousandfold proofs, how nature in its freedom 

 sportively overleaps the boundaries, by which systematists vainly 

 endeavour to narrow the endless and marvellous forms of its 

 organisms for strict literary arrangement or demarcation. 



INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN FORAGE PLANTS, (Non- 

 Grasses) INCLUDING PLANTS INJURIOUS TO STOCK. 



By J. H. Maiden, F.L.S., &c, Curator of the Technological 

 Museum, Sydney. 



[Read before the Royal Society of N.S.W., June 6, 1888. .] 



Owing to the severity of the droughts, (and in some districts, the 

 competition of rabbits and other vermin) cattle and sheep in 

 Australia have at times to endeavour to preserve existence by 

 ■devouring any vegetable matter whatsoever. The plants therefore 

 eaten by stock embrace a very large number of species, but I have 

 confined myself in the following pages to references to the plants 

 usually eaten by them, either because they are abundant, or 

 readily withstand the drought, or because stock are very partial 

 to browsing upon them. The poisonous plants of course come 

 under different category. If I were to record the names of all 

 suspected poisonous plants, the list would be a very large one. 

 The observations of bushmen as to the poisonous nature of certain 

 plants, are not always to be relied on,* and the enquiry even to a 

 scientific man, is attended with much difficulty. In " Plants 

 injurious to Stock," (Bailey and Gordon), Govt. Printer, Brisbane, 

 will be found references to a number of suspected plants, but in 

 regard to many, the verdict of "not proven" must be entered. 



* The allegation is from time to time made in the newspapers, that 

 sometimes through ignorance, and sometimes as a matter of expediency, 

 squatters report that their sheep or cattle have fallen victims to poison- 

 weeds, when in reality they have perished from disease. Whatever the 

 extent of this misrepresentation may be., it is an undoubted fact that 

 during the last few years, many instances of alleged poisoning by weeds 

 having been enquired into on the spot by a competent veterinarian, have 

 been proved to have been caused by disease. 



