Stinking Willie. July 2018
Stinking Willie, out in the Nottinghamshire countryside.
Common names include, Ragwort, Tansy Ragwort Benweed, St. James-wort, Stinking nanny/ninny/willy, Staggerwort, dog standard, Cankerwort, Stammerwort
This all-too-familiar plant is now in its prime - in pony paddocks, waste ground and alongside railway tracks up and down the land, posing a deadly threat to Britain's horses and ponies. The British Horse Society believes up to 6,500 horses die every year from Ragwort poisoning.
Ragwort - Senecio jacobaea - contains a group of deadly toxins. When eaten by grazing animals, particularly horses, the plant causes severe liver damage and is often fatal. These toxins pass from the gut direct to the liver, where they destroy cells until there are too few left to carry out vital functions. Liver failure is then inevitable.
To protect their animals, horse-owners will spend many hours this summer hand-pulling the deadly plants from grazing paddocks.
But the ragwort vigilantes may also be putting themselves at risk. The plant's toxins can be absorbed through the skin or breathed in as pollen grains. Inside the human body, the poisons begin damaging liver cells, a slow and irreversible process leading to cirrhosis, months or even years later.
The plant may even be more dangerous than was once thought. New research shows the seedlings to be more toxic than the mature plants. Grazing animals instinctively avoid the mature plant. But the long, thin leaves of seedlings are not detected and are often eaten within a mouthful of grass.
With the weed continuing its inexorable march across the countryside, it threatens to take its highest ever toll of Britain's horse population this summer.
Stinking Willie. July 2018
Stinking Willie, out in the Nottinghamshire countryside.
Common names include, Ragwort, Tansy Ragwort Benweed, St. James-wort, Stinking nanny/ninny/willy, Staggerwort, dog standard, Cankerwort, Stammerwort
This all-too-familiar plant is now in its prime - in pony paddocks, waste ground and alongside railway tracks up and down the land, posing a deadly threat to Britain's horses and ponies. The British Horse Society believes up to 6,500 horses die every year from Ragwort poisoning.
Ragwort - Senecio jacobaea - contains a group of deadly toxins. When eaten by grazing animals, particularly horses, the plant causes severe liver damage and is often fatal. These toxins pass from the gut direct to the liver, where they destroy cells until there are too few left to carry out vital functions. Liver failure is then inevitable.
To protect their animals, horse-owners will spend many hours this summer hand-pulling the deadly plants from grazing paddocks.
But the ragwort vigilantes may also be putting themselves at risk. The plant's toxins can be absorbed through the skin or breathed in as pollen grains. Inside the human body, the poisons begin damaging liver cells, a slow and irreversible process leading to cirrhosis, months or even years later.
The plant may even be more dangerous than was once thought. New research shows the seedlings to be more toxic than the mature plants. Grazing animals instinctively avoid the mature plant. But the long, thin leaves of seedlings are not detected and are often eaten within a mouthful of grass.
With the weed continuing its inexorable march across the countryside, it threatens to take its highest ever toll of Britain's horse population this summer.