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Sir William Hooker adds a note : 
Although the large and handsome seeds are eaten by the natives of Brisbane River, and by the 
convicts in that part of our colony, as substitutes for our Spanish chestnuts, I have found them hard, 
bitter, and their flavour not unlike that of an acorn. 
Extended experience shows that very few stomachs can tolerate them. 
The principal food of our natives is the Queensland chestnut; the beans are cut into strips, soaked 
in water, and then either cooked as they are, or kneaded into cakes. (J. A. Boyd, Herbert River, Q , in 
a letter to the author.) 
The aborigines usually scrape it, by means of jagged mussel shells, into a 
vermicelli-like substance, prior to soaking it in water. 
The beans are used as food by the aborigines, who prepare them by first steeping them in water 
from eight to ten days; they are then taken out, dried in the sun, roasted upon hot stones, pounded into a 
coarse meal, in which state they may be kept for an indefinite period. When required for use, the meal is 
simply mixed with water, made into a thin cake, and baked in the usual manner. In taste, cakes prepared 
in this way resemble a coarse ship biscuit. (C. Moore.) 
A sample of starch from these beans was exhibited by Mr. Moore at the 
Intercolonial Exhibition of Melbourne, 1866. 
The starch or flour is neither better nor worse than many of the food starches 
at present consumed for food. As an experiment, a chemist at Lismore once made 
40 lh. of starch from the beans, which he sold at 4d. per lb. 
Dr. T. L. Bancroft, of Brisbane, has examined the beans, and is very 
emphatic in regard to their deleterious properties as far as man is concerned. He 
states that if a small piece of the bean be eaten it causes severe diarrhoea, with 
intense griping, and he says it does this whether it was previously soaked in water 
or even roasted. He states that no poisonous principle is removed by water, and no 
part of the plant is hitter. 
Having considered these seeds as food for human beings, let us consider them 
as food for domestic animals. 
Stock-owners have long waged war against this tree, owing to the fact that 
cattle and horses are poisoned through eating the seeds. They are not, how r ever, a 
poison in the strict sense of the term, since no alkaloid or poisonous principle was 
for a long period found in them. All the same, the beans kill the stock owing to 
their highly indigestible character, the indigestible portion in time forming a hall in 
the stomach. The leaves also are found to he injurious, and animals which take to 
eating them become very fond of them, and when taken away return long distances 
to these trees, and according to some accounts become affected similarly to animals 
which eat the Darling pea, and, if not carefully looked after, they will pine away 
and die. Eollowing are some interesting notes in regard to bean poisoning on the 
Bichmond River :— 
1883 was a dry season, and grass scarce. - informed me that he had lost over 100 
head of cattle by bean poisoning. Next day my attention was drawn to a few cattle in the 
stockyard said to be poisoned by eating beans. I inquired of the stockman if he had any proof that they 
