ST. JOHN’S WORT AND HEMLOCK

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23741, 12 September 1942, Page 3

ST. JOHN’S WORT AND HEMLOCK

* A reader has submitted a specimen of a plant for identification and would also like some information about the habit and effects of hemlock on stock. He is sustaining losses in condition amongst his ram hoggets in a paddock where these two plants are growing. The specimen submitted is a member of the St. John’s Wort family, known as “Tutsan,” or botanically hypericum. It is not a poisonous plant, but is too hard and woody to. make hay and is objectionable to stock. It reproduces itself from seed and by shallow undergrowth, and generally grows in healthy pastures. The flower of the plant has a very attractive appearance in the late summer and early autumn, instances of which may be seen in the gullies of hillsides in some parts of the southern provinces. Expert advice in England, where it is apparently more common, is to root it out, as it has no stock feeding value. Hemlock, on the other hand, is regarded as a very poisonous plant to stock in England, containing as it does the poisonous alkaloid conine. Hemlock is a biennial plant, common in fields, hedges, and waste, places, and flowers in New Zealand in December and January, and ripens a month later. Any quantity of it would conceivably do much harm to stock.