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Gastrolobium grandiflorum
Also called Desert Poisonbush, Heart Leaf Poisonbush, Pea Flower Poisonbush, Wallflower Poison, Wallflower Poisonbush, Heart Leaf Poison
Gastrolobium grandiflorum, commonly known as wallflower poison, wallflower poison bush or heart-leaf poison bush, is a bushy shrub which is endemic to Australia.
It grows to 2 or 3 metres in height and between late summer and early winter (February to August in Australia) it produces orange-red pea-flowers with a yellow centre and red veins. The leaves are hairy and heart-shaped on younger plants and elliptic and more glabrous on older plants, up to 6 cm long and 2.7 cm wide.
The species, like many others within the genus Gastrolobium, contains high levels of fluoroacetate (the active ingredient in the pest control toxin known as 1080) The leaves, seeds and roots are highly poisonous to cattle, sheep, horses and goats. Major livestock losses have been attributed to the plant in Queensland.
In 1896, the explorer and gold prospector David Carnegie came across the plant in Western Australia on the return leg of an expedition from Coolgardie to Halls Creek later writing:
Gastrolobium acrocaroli · Gastrolobium alternifolium · Heart Leaf Poisonbush · Gastrolobium brevipes · York Road Poison · Bacon And Eggs · Swan River Pea · Gastrolobium coriaceum · Gastrolobium formosum · Gastrolobium glabratum · Gastrolobium leakeanum · Gastrolobium lehmannii
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gastrolobium grandiflorum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
