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Show sWeed Fatal To Cattle Is Spreading In South - There's a new cattle killing weed on the loose, from Florida to Texas and Oklahoma. Its botanical name is "glottidium vesicarium." Farmers call it bladderpod, coffee bean weed, castle-bean . Last winter it killed at least 100 cattle in Oklahoma. Next winter it will kill many more warns Dr. H. I. Featherly, Oklo-homa Oklo-homa A. & M. College botanist. The weed grows over two feet tall. Its leaves are feathery; its pods are fat and .pointed, with an inside membrane or "bladder" within the outside hull. In the pod are two dark brown beans, shaped like small butter beans. They are hard coated, may not sprout for a year or two. There apparently is no remedy if a cow eats these beans. They seem to become poisonous only after frost, however and lose their poison in storage. Symptoms are bowel upsets, rough coats, trembling legs. Hogs won't eat the beans, and apparently sheep pass it up too. Chickens have been killed in experiments ex-periments to test the poison The plant it's a legume is an annual, and probobly can be controlled con-trolled by mowing before it sets its seed. Watch out for it, though, because be-cause it's still on the march. |