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882 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1900. 
Botany. 
POISONOUS PLANTS. 
By F. MANSON BAILEY, F.L.S., 
Colonial Botanist. 
JATROPHA CURCAS, Linn.—_THE PHYSIC-NUT. 
Scrceny a year passes without specimens of this poisonous shrub being sent 
to me for determination, with accounts of it having poisoned children who ha 
eaten some of the fruit. Last month specimens of it were received by Hf 
Department from the town clerk, Charters Towers, who stated that it was 
locally known as “ Bottle-tree,” and also ‘‘ Candle-nut,’ and was growl ue 
many gardens on account of its fresh and shady appearance in the spring: 
With a view to placing persons on their guard against so dangerous a plant, it 
has been deemed advisable to publish a short notice, accompanied with a plate, 
in this Journal, by which it is hoped the plant will be easily recognised #9 
eradicated from places within the reach of young children. 
Description—A. small evergreen tree with smooth bark, leaves broadly 
heart-shaped, 7 to 5-nerved at the truncate or sinuate-rounded base, on 4 stal 
3 to 6 inches long, angular, 5 or rarely 3-lobed or sometimes entire, UP to 
inches across. Flowers yellowish in corymbs near the ends of the branch 
corolla tube of male flowers hairy inside. Style glabrous, shortly 2-clett. 
Capsules (fruit) ovoid, exceeding 1 inch in length, yellowish green. Seed 
nearly black, oblong, nearly 3-inch long, the kernel enclosed in a thin white 
membrane. Native of South America. 
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Properties, Uses, §c.—Dr. W. Dymock, in his excellent work, “ The 
Vegetable Materia Medica of Western India,’ states that eke 
seeds of Jatropha Curcas are sometimes used as a purgative and alterative by 
the Hindu physicians, but on account of their uncertain action they are no 
much esteemed. . . . It is stated that if the embryo is wholly remov 
four or five of the seeds may be used as a purgative without producing either 
yomiting or griping, the acrid emetic principle residing chiefly in the embryo 
. . A number of cases have occurred of poisoning by eating the seeds 
entire. In one case, a man who had eaten five of them soon complained 0. 
burning in the mouth and throat, and the whole abdomen felt distended a? 
sore. Ina few minutes vomiting occurred, and was repeated five times in- the. 
course of an hour, accompanied with active purging. The pain continued; the 
patient complained of feeling hot and giddy; he then became delirious, 2” 
afterwards insensible. On regaining consciousness several hours later, his 
face was pale, his hands cool, and the pulse 110 and weak. He recoveree: 
. . . . In 1854, at Birmingham, more than thirty boys were poisone 
by eating these seeds. In some of them, besides the symptoms just mentione® 
there was a hot skin and an appearance of drowsiness, which may, howeyvé!s 
have been due to exhaustion produced by the evacuations. ‘They all made 
good recoveries. . . . . 
A fixed oil (called in Canarese “ Mara haralu unnay”’) is prepared from the 
