CHRISTMAS NUTS WARNING

 Do not, repeat  do not  be  tempted to eat  cycad nuts over the  festive season, or any other time for that matter . Darwin agronomist  Robert Wesley-Smith  issued  this   warning  after   reading  Little Darwin's  recent  illustrated  post about  Townsville  cycads . 

He informed  us  that  his memoirs , upon which he has been working  of  late,  will  contain   information  about  the  time  he  corresponded with a professor in  Okinawa  about  Japanese who  had long  suffered  from     eating   cycad   nuts .

In  1973 Wesley-Smith  wrote a  paper ,  Cycads and  Cattle in the Northern Territory, for the Animal Industry and Agriculture  Branch , which  pointed  out  the  danger of  toxins  in the  leaves  for  cattle , plus the threat to humans  eating   the  nuts.

As a result ,  he was  contacted by  the  professor  who detailed the history of  cycad  poisoning  in  Japan.  

It seems the Japanese cycad (Cycas revoluta Thunb) stores  starch  in seeds and  trunk , producing a  toxin  which  causes  liver  damage , internal bleeding  and   death  if  eaten .   

Wesley-Smith said  the  l948 American-Australian Scientific  Expedition  into  Arnhem Land   discovered  Aborigines had  developed  a way to  leach  out  the  cycad   toxin   eons  ago. 

  (Nuts, Wesley, Cycads. )