Allow me to ask you, whether a bag full of the York-road poison-bush (gastrolobium calycinum) could be carefully dried for me, at a place, and in a season when it proves very destructive to herds and flocks. I am eager to submit the plant to exact chemical tests, in order to isolate the poison principle for phgsiologic2 exact experiments. I have made a few observations on the gastrolobium nilobum3 from King George’s Sound, but the quantity of material on which I operated was too small for practical purposes, and I am not quite sure whether the poisonous principle may not be volatile.
The dried poison plants, before sent to me, might be tried on some old sheep, so that I may be certain that it is not inert material on which I work.
Melbourne, Nov. 23, 1879.4
Gastrolobium calycinum
Gastrolobium nilobum
Letter not found. The text given here is from 'The poison plant', West Australian (Perth), 16 December 1879, p. 2 (B79.12.02). The text is introduced by: ‘We have received the following communication from Baron von Mueller:’
Typesetter's error for physiologic?
Typesetter's error for Gastrolobium bilobum?
The letter is followed by:
We hope that some of our readers will take this up, and prepare a bag of poison plant as the Baron directs. If sent to our office, we will arrange for it to be forwarded to the Baron at Melbourne.—Ed. W.A.
Please cite as “FVM-79-11-23d,” in Correspondence of Ferdinand von Mueller, edited by R.W. Home, Thomas A. Darragh, A.M. Lucas, Sara Maroske, D.M. Sinkora†, J.H. Voigt† and Monika Wells accessed on