2 BULLETIN 1376, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
calf sick. The sick animals were salivated and vomited, and some- 
times could be traced through a pasture by the material thrown out 
by vomiting. Mr. Walker, of Pawhuska, stated that at one time he 
lost 5 out of 500 and at that time 40 were sick. Mr. Craddock, of 
the same place, stated that one man had lost as many as 400 head 
of cattle. 
The matter was of great interest because this was the first and only 
report to the Department of Agriculture of losses from this plant, 
although it is now well known that the species of Zygadenus growing 
in the West have occasioned heavy losses of livestock. It seemed a 
matter of some importance that the plant should be investigated 
experimentally, and arrangements were made for collecting material 
for experimental work. Unfortunately, this material was not 
obtained in 1922, but through the kindness of Doctors Allen and 
Hiatt a large quantity was collected in the spring of 1923, and the 
results of the experimental work with this material are recorded in 
this bulletin. 
Very little has been known of the poisonous properties of this 
species. In 1840, W. J. Hooker, in Flora Boreali-Americana, vol. 2, 
page 177, mentions 11 Leimanthium nuttallii as being poisonous, but 
it is evident from the locality in which the plant was collected that 
the author had Zygadenus venenosus, not Z. nuttallii. The only 
definite reference to the poisonous properties of the species in ques- 
tion was made by J. U. and C. G. Lloyd in an article published in 
the American Druggist, 1887, vol. 16, page 141. In this article the 
following statement is made: 
I find it to be a powerful narcotic poison. One of my patients, a girl 8 years 
old, claimed that she only broke the stem of the plant and rubbed the juice on 
her lips and lapped it off with her tongue. Severe convulsions followed, lasting 
one and one-half hours, the most violent that it has been my lot to witness in a 
practice of 35 years; 24 hours later she had one of an hour's duration. I gave 
strong coffee from the start, used the bromides and gelsemium, stood over the 
patient three days and nights constantly. I write this that you may know there 
is a potency here not often met in the vegetable kingdom. 
Symptoms. — Extreme thirst, constant vomiting, dilatation of the pupil and 
coma, and (sequel) inflammation of the stomach. 
One young lady, not included in the above, says she tasted the plant and it 
made her very sick; she also states that the taste was fascinating and followed 
by a desire for more, and that it required all her will-power to resist. 
The foregoing comprises all that was published of the poisonous 
properties of Zyadenus nuttallii prior to the work reported herein, 
with the exception of a reference by P. J. O'Gara in the Sixteenth 
Annual Report of the Agricultural Experiment Station of Nebraska, 
in which he writes of Z. nuttallii as occurring in Nebraska and inti- 
mates that it may be a cause of stock losses. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLANT > 
Zygadenus nuttallii. — The stems are stout, 1 to 2 feet high; the 
bulbs are ovate. The leaves are from 4 to 20 inches long, one-fourth 
to three-fourths inch wide, and somewhat curved; the upper leaves 
are shorter and the lower are sheathed at base. The flower clusters 
are simple or branched and rather densely flowered. The flowers 
are whitish or yellowish; the bracts are about the length of the 
pedicels and are narrow and thin; the flower segments are from 
i The description was prepared by W. W. Eggleston, of the Bureau of Plant Industry. 
