Paterson's Curse

What     : The Curse

Where   : Rose Hill, Cootamundra

Weapon : Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3

Paterson's Curse, Echium plantagineum (known as "Salvation Jane" in South Australia) is an introduced winter annual from the Mediterranean. Free of native insect communities, it has become a dominant pasture weed of temperate Australia. A prolific seeder, each plant offsprings in the thousands. Each seedling in turn develops large taproots which out-compete other native and cultivated germinating plant species.

Paterson's Curse can completely dominate a paddock and contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids that are poisonous to livestock, destroying the liver, reducing weight gain in beef, impacting on wool clip and in severe cases leads to death.

Not nice.