Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women - Wise Acres Yearbook (Ambler, PA)

Page 11 text:

amygdlain from which by enzyme action the deadly prus-sic acid is liberated. The effect produced by vegetable poisons differ, in that some produce skin disease, as poison ivy, poison oak, certain fungi, etc. Other plant poisons when taken into the system cause various disorders, a number affecting the nervous centres. Some effects are mechanical. The ordinary fodder plants, in no sense poisonous, often cause serious disorders among domestic animals when taken in too large quantities. In view of the varying effects produced by plant toxins under varied conditions, it is very difficult to make an accurate list of the plants that are poisonous. Among the lower forms of plant life, many forms could be cited. During the last twenty-five years especial emphasis has been put on the study of bacteria, minute plants, so small that no doubt many of them are too small for us to see even with the most powerful microscope. Some are instrumental in bringing about the decomposition of organic substances and in this process liberate many toxic products, among these the ptomaines, alkaloidal compounds, whicn when taken into the system cause serious disorders and very often produce death. The disease-producing bacteria could well be called poisonous plants. In the large group of the fungi, which includes mushrooms, toadstools, rusts, smuts, mildews, molds, etc., many poisonous forms are found. Among the fleshy fungi it is often very difficult to distinguish between those that contain toxic principles and those that are harmless. Through ig- norance of those points which distinguish poisonous from ediuie lift 1 10 4. . ( of poisoning occur, often resulting in uv.au. These errors of identification have been frequent enough to inspire the timid with a decided dread of all fungi. Fortunately there are relatively few of the fleshy fungi that are deadly. The question is often asked : “how can one be absolutely certain of the poisonous forms?” Captain Macllvaine says that there is no fixed rule by whicl the poisonous and the edible fungi can separated. He gives two suggestion “Never eat a toadstool found in the woods or shady places, believing it to be the common mushroom. Never eat a white or yel-low-gilled toadstool.” Most of the cases of mushroom p. ri are due to the “Death Cup” (Amanita plial loides) often mistaken for the comm mushroom by the gatherer of edible fun The bulbous base of the stipe, the white gills and white spores are a few of the characters which distinguish it from Agari-cus campestris which lacks the “bulb” and has pinkish or brownish gills and dark-colored spores. The toxic property is phallin, a tox-albumin which acts on the red blood corpuscles, dissolving them. Atropine is used as an antidote for the poison. Many cases of poisoning have been attributed to the Fly Amanita (Amanita mus-caria), a closely allied species which is widely distributed, but can be recognized by its orange-red or pale yellow cap, over which flocculent scales are scattered. The spores are white, as in the other species. (To be concluded). 5

Page 10 text:

■poisonous plants D. W. S. The subject of poisons, their sources, methods of recognition, the effects produced, and the treatment prescribed, is one of the utmost importance to the physician and to the veterinarian. The interest in toxicology, the science of poisons, is shared by the botanist and the horticulturist, and rightly so, for the earliest known poisons were derived from plants. Later those of animal origin, such as snake venom, and those obtained from minerals as arsenic and mercury were studied. The early history of plant poisons is involved in myth, for it is said that Hecate, the Greek goddess of mystery and magic arts was the discoverer of poisonous herbs. The Egyptians were familiar with effects and uses of such plants as henbane, aconite and the poison hemlock. They also knew the very deadly prussic acid which they extracted from the leaves and the fruit of the peach and which they used in putting to death those who revealed religious secrets. The ancient Greeks and Romans likewise made a study of the poisonous plants and the products which they yielded. Pliny mentions that the Gauls dipped their arrows before going into battle in preparations of veratrum, the false hellebore, a plant found in our region which is used in medicine and which has been known to have produced fatal results when mistaken for other plants that resemble it. It was not uncommon during the early and middle ages to put condemned criminals to death by administering poisons. It is said that the deaths of Socrates, Demosthenes, Hannibal and Cleopatra were due to the effects of poisons. Our present knowledge of poisonous plants dates back mainly to the middle and latter part of the nineteenth century, after rapid advances had been made in botany and chemistry. The number of poisonous plants known at the present time is very large, numbering thousands. It is rather difficult to give an exact definition of a poisonous plant for the toxic substances produced by plants vary very much under different conditions. Under poisonous plants might be included all such plants that, when man or animals come in contact with them or when parts of the plants or their products are taken into the animal body, they cause injurious symptoms, and tend to produce death or serious detriment to health. What is poison to one animal may be food to another, or at least entirely harmless. A plant may be poisonous to man and not to animals; this is true to a certain degree for poison ivy, a very common plant that is at once suggested when poisonous plants are mentioned. Many animals eat this plant with perfect impunity. Snails can stand larger doses of strychnine than man. A rabbit is capable of withstanding larger doses of morphine than man. The hedgehog can stand far more prussic acid than man can. The age and health of the individual have a very important bearing on the degree of the toxicity. A young animal is usually much more susceptible to poison than an older one. In like manner the age of the plants has a direct relation to the amount and concentration of the poisons contained. In the younger stages of growth the poke-weed has no poisonous principles but later it developes the acrid alkaloid phytolaccin, and other toxic substances. The manner of applying or injecting the poison varies the effectiveness of it. Some substances are more poisonous when applied to the skin, or injected subcutaneously. than when taken into the digestive tract. Certain plant contents are harmless when applied to the skin, but when taken into the alimentary canal and the digestive ferments' act on them, they become deadly poisons; such the case with the glucoside 4

Page 12 text:

(jHueljnuuns—iftagbc How often my eye, as it has followed the lines of an uninteresting magazine article, has strayed aside into the advertisement columns and read Grow Mushrooms Grow Rich No Trouble—Little Expense! Then I have leaned back in my chair and presto—I have glided through the Alleg-hanies in my luxuriant touring car, destined for Coronada Beach; or billowed around Hatteras in my yacht bound for Palm Beach. With such daydreams drifting in my subconscious mind, I heard with delight one day in early November that we were really foing to grow mushrooms here at school. Yevious to that time we had been advised by our instructor as to the nature, habits, and requirements of the mushroom. We had learned that the mushroom is a fungus, the vegetative part of which is a mass of hyphal threads called mycelium; and that the edible portion includes the spore bearing gills. We had learned of the propagation by means of “mushroom spawn,” that this spawn was specially and carefully prepared by certain seed firms and that the quality of the spawn determined to a large extent the success or failure of one’s mushroom crop. We had been warned that the mushroom was extremely particular about its food, having a decided preference for short, sweet manure from stables where horses were fed on hard grain. We had learned also that the mushroom spawn after being soaked in tepid water liked to be put into a pleasantly warm bed of 80 degrees Fahrenheit in a dark room having a rather even temperature, between 55 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit; that it was fond of an occasional drink of tepid water and was particularly pleased with a slight stimulant concocted of one ounce of Hartshorn Salts and five gallons of water. it was on November 9th that we adventured into the field of Mushroom Culture. Hopefully we adventured, but dubiously, for had we not been instructed that the mushroom desired a dark room with a temperature between 55 and 60 degrees, and did not the carnations growing in that; raised bed under which the mushrooms were to be grown, yearn for sunshine and like 50 degrees Fahrenheit or even less? When we arrived at the greenhouse that morning of November 9th, we were told that the manure had come, and that we were to heap it out of doors in piles four ifeet by five feet and three feet in height. We used our spading forks, making the boundaries of the first layer, then filling in towards the centre and tramping each layer firmly, and proceeding in like manner with each succeeding layer. A little powdered gypsum sprinkled between these layers of manure would have lessened appreciably the escape of nitrogen, but we took all available precautions against the excessive leaching of this plant food by covering the piles with straw mats. At about the second spade full it was unanimously decided that possibly the manure might in time become short, but sweet—never! In five days the piles had heated sufficiently to be turned. We turned the stacks inside out thus insuring an even decomposition of the material, shaking the straw and watering any manure that had burned, and always tramping each layer firmly. The third time the piles were turned the manure had shrunk to half its original bulk and was stacked in one pile. That, we were told, would be the last turning as the manure was really getting quite short and sweet. About this time my enthusiasm for mushroom culture, damped by abounding backaches, began to wane and it was with anything but delight that T discovered on the 6