1 Oct., 1901.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 421 
Science. 
ANALYSIS OF THE SEEDS OF THE MORETON BAY CHESTNUT, 
° OR BEAN-TREE. 
(Castanospermum australe, A. Cunn.) 
By J. C. BRUNNICH, F.C.S. 
Chemist to the Department of Agriculture. 
The Moreton Bay Chestnut, or Bean-tree, a handsome tree which grows 
luxuriantly on most of our river banks, produces a large amount of seeds, 
resembling in appearance and size the European horse-chestnuts. These seeds 
are found in a thick pod or bean, containing generally three seeds. When ripe 
these pods drop on the ground, they burst open, and the seeds are eaten by 
horses and cattle grazing near such trees. Severe losses of horses and cattle 
haye been caused by animals eating the beans, for which they seem to get a 
great liking. 
Hitherto the ill-effects of the beans have been attributed to the indigestible 
character of the seeds, as no active poisonous principle could be detected. The 
analysis of the beans which I just carried out, shows that the seeds cannot by 
any means be more indigestible than other seeds of a similar nature, and that the 
ill-effects are unquestionably due to a large amount of the glucoside “ saponin”’ 
found in the seeds. 
Before I give the result of the analysis and the manner in which it was 
carried out, I will state some of the evidence with regard to the effect of the 
beans as a food for man, or as a food injurious to stock, taken from an 
exhaustive article on the Moreton Bay Chestnut, by Mr. J. H. Maiden, the 
Government Botanist of New South Wales, which appeared in Vol. V., Part J, 
of the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales :— 
“By the natives the fruit is eaten on all occasions. It has, when roasted, 
the flavour of a Spanish chestnut, and I have been assured by Europeans who 
have subsisted on it exclusively for two days, that no other unpleasant effect 
was the result than a slight pain in the bowels, and that only when it is eaten 
raw.” Sir William Hooker adds a note: ‘Although the large and handsome 
seeds are eaten by the natives of the Brisbane River, and by the convicts in that 
art of our colony, as a substitute for our Spanish chestnuts, I have found 
them hard, bitter, and their flavour not unlike that of. the acorn.” Hxtended 
experience shows that very few stomachs can tolerate them. 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 states that it does this whether it has been previously soaked in water or 
even roasted. He states that no poisonous principle is removed by water, and 
no part of the plant is bitter. Mr. Charles Moore, director of the Sydney 
Botanic Gardens, exhibited a sample of starch or flour of the beans at the 
Intercolonial Exhibition of Melbourne, 1866, and he supplies the following 
information concerning his exhibit :—The beans are used as a food by the 
aborigines, who prepare them by first steeping them in water for from eight to 
ten days. They are then taken out, dried in the sun, roasted upon hot stones, 
and pounded into a coarse meal, in which state they may be kept for an indefinite 
period. When required for use, the mealis 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. Usually the aborigines scrape it, by means 
of jagged mussel-shells, into a vermicelli-like substance prior to soaking it in 
water. The starch or flour is neither better nor worse than many of the food 
