1 Jan., 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 49 
PLANTS REPUTED POISONOUS TO STOCK. 
By F. MANSON BAILEY, F.1L.8., 
Colonial Botanist. 
; HEDGE NETTLE (Stachys arvensis, Linn.). 
Tuts little English weed, called the Common Hedge Nettle, has been intro- 
duced into the cultivation fields and is now a pest in lucerne and other paddocks, 
and especially in badly cultivated lands. It is from a few inches to over 1 foot 
high, and produces many stems from the base. The whole plant is hairy ; the 
leaves heart-shaped, obtuse, and bluntly toothed. Flowers small, pale-purple, 
from 2 to 6 in a whorl forming a loose leafy spike. Calyx of 5 nearly equal 
teeth. Corolla scarcely exceeding the calyx, the upper lip erect, entire, the lip 
spreading and of three lobes. Stamens 4, in pairs, ascending under the upper 
lip. 
: It must strike one as rather remarkable that this little European weed, so 
common on sandy or chalky lands in England, should be suspected in Queens- 
land, where it has been introduced in course of cultivation and become 
naturalised, of causing such direful effect on stock in this colony, and is the 
more unaccountable when it is remembered that of the nearly 3,000 plants of 
the order to which it belongs, none are known to possess secretions of a 
deleterious nature. In Queensland this plant is reported to affect horses much 
in the same way as vertigo or “« staggers.” Mr. J. Ivory, amongst others, 
supplies symptoms produced by it in the horse. After eating it the effect is 
best seen when the horse is at work. ‘‘ All at once it stops, shivers all over, 
and, if not allowed to spell a considerable time, is almost sure to die. Cattleif 
only browsing and let alone are not affected -by it. Bullocks, when working, 
very frequently die through the bad effects of the plant. Even if they do not 
die, they cannot work above two hours a day. When opened after death the 
stomachs have the appearance of having been burnt with strong acid.” 
Quantities of this weed are often brought into town mixed with the lucerne 
sold for greenstuff, and according to report has caused the deaths of a number 
of working horses. : 
When it is known that horses or bullocks have eaten this herb, they should 
be unyoked and allowed to remain quiet for a few days; if continued to be 
worked, in all probability they would die. 
Popular Botany. 
PLANT-HELPING INSECTS. 
AN ILLUSTRATION. 
By PHILIP MAC MAHON, Curator. 
Ox the opposite page will be seen an illustration (copied from the “ Botanical 
Magazine’’) of a plant which shows a very remarkable instance of the manner 
in which one section of the organic world is made to minister to the necessities 
of another. My be 
Tt is easy to imagine that, if all the fodder plants upon the earth were at 
one stroke swept out of existence, all the vast tribes of animals which live 
upon them would soon perish, and following these the carnivora, and finally in 
a great measure, if not absolutely, Man; but it is much more difficult to 
believe that the total extinction of a particular race of insects would inevitably 
be followed by the complete annihilation, as a matter of course, of whole 
families of plants. 
And this is not merely a matter, as it is too often considered, for the 
speculation of the curious. The cross-fertilisation of plants effected by insect 
agency is so necessary for the continuance of the vigour of any given species 
that Nature has exhausted» her every resource and displayed her deepest’ 
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