Foxes Lair
  • Home
  • About
    • About Foxes Lair
    • History
    • Landscape and Soils
  • Things To Do
    • Picnic Spots
    • Walk Trails
    • Visit the Arboretum
    • Ride Your Bicycle
    • Scavenger hunt
    • Geocaching and Orienteering
  • Things To See
    • Wildflowers
    • Trees in the Narrogin district
    • Birds
    • Vertebrates
    • Narrogin spiders scorpions ticks
    • Fungi and lichens
  • Foxes Lair seasonal guide
    • December to March
    • April - May
    • June-July
    • August
    • September
    • October
    • November
  • Other great reserves
    • Railway Dam
    • Yilliminning Rock
    • Old Mill Dam
    • Yornaning Dam
    • Contine Hill
    • Highbury Reserve
    • Boyagin Rock
    • Barna Mia
    • Toolibin Lake
    • Newman Block
    • Harrismith Nature Reserve
    • Candy Block
    • Tutanning Nature Reserve
  • 1Foxypress
    • Foxypress
    • Vanishing Farms
  • Contact

Poison Pea Flowering Plants

30/7/2016

0 Comments

 
Greetings fellow Foxies,
In 1835 Governor James Stirling and Surveyor General James Septimus Roe were part of the Great Southern expedition from Perth to Albany via York. Near Crossman seven of their bullocks died from eating Gastrolobium poison pea plants. These were amongst the first of many thousands of sheep, cattle, and horses lost by settlers and later farmers.
However on the positive side, poison plants were so thick on lighter soils that farmers avoided them and they were fenced out, or they were an additional reason for the many reserves and remnant vegetation in the Great Southern, compared with the wheatbelt.
The toxin is Fluor acetate, the active part of 1080 poison that is used for controlling feral rabbits, cats and foxes. Poison plants are safe to touch, but do not eat or suck them, particularly the flowers and seeds. Native animals have developed resistance and bronze wing pigeon thrives on the seeds.
Picture
There are three rules of thumb to distinguish Gastrolobium poisons from the many other benign yellow and orange flowering pea flowered bushes.

  1. Leaves are joined to the branch together in groups of 2 to 5 emerging roughly opposite each other, at regular intervals along the stem. No alternate leaves.
  2. Where the leaf joins the stem (leaf axil), there is a short spine (stipules) on either side of the join.
  3. Flowers arise from a group (an inflorescence) at the ends of branches, not the leaf axil.
     
    These are shown on sandplain poison Gastrolobium bilobum, (the most common poison at Dryandra) on the left.
.

 The 3 poisons below from Foxes Lair share these features.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Bullock Poison Gastrolobium trilobum (left) is a very spiny bush with small flowers that is generally found on relatively bare areas around mafic (reddish stony and steep) breakaways.

It does not occur in Foxes Lair.






          The following pea plants are not poisons.

Picture
flowers in axils - no stipules - leaves opposite +
Picture
flowers terminal + leaves not opposite - no stipules -
Picture
inflorescence terminal + leaves not opposite - no stipules -
Isotropis cuneifolia (lamb poison) below is a herb with some strains that contain cyanide and other Isotropis species are not to be nibbled.
Picture
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Doug Sawkins is a friend of Foxes Lair 

    Categories

    All
    Animals Other
    Birds
    Disorders Plant Animal
    Fungi Lichens
    History
    Insects Bugs Other Arthropods
    Landscapes Soils
    Other Reserves And Places
    Reptiles
    Spiders Other Arachnids
    Tree
    Walks Other Facilities
    Wasp
    Wildflowers Orchids
    Wildflowers Other Summer Autumn
    Wildflowers Other Winter Spring
    Wildflowers Parasitic

    Archives

    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    May 2012
    March 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    April 2011

© 2015 All Rights Reserved. Doug Sawkins, Australia.