DISTRIBUTION:
Grass- and bushveld, mainly Pretoria/Magaliesburg area.
Botanical description: General: A shrub, 0,5 - 1 m high, with many branches spreading from ground level. All parts strongly aromatic, smelling like lemon peel. Young stems quadrangular, becoming more round with age - they are slightly hairy and rough to the touch.
Leaves: The leaves are opposite, with toothed margins and rough surfaces.
Flowers: The small, yellowish white flowers are grouped in compact round flower heads, which are borne on long stalks (±5 cm) in the leaf axils. Spring - summer.
Fruit: The fruit is small and two-chambered with one seed in each chamber.
TOXIC PRINCIPLE:
• Icterogenins and rhemannic acid are also pentacyclic, triterpene acids like lantadene.
• The toxicity is very similar to that of Lantana camara.
Mechanism of action:
• Alters permeability of liver cell membranes and leads to intrahepatic cholestasis with relatively little damage to liver cells.
• Also paralyses smooth muscle of gall bladder - can’t contract and bile accumulation may cause erosion.
• Phylloerythrin concentration increases in the circulation.
SYNDROMES:
Hepatogenous photosensitivity primarily due to liver parenchymal damage.
SYSTEMS AFFECTED:
Liver.
CLINICAL SIGNS:
• Clinical signs very similar to Lantanta camara poisoning.
• Mainly a cattle problem. Sheep are also susceptible, but seldom eat it.
Goats may eat it.
• Secondary photosensitivity - hairless areas i.e. muzzle and perineal area,
also unpigmented areas.
• Marked icterus.
• Rumen stasis, constipation - may have diarrhoea.
NECROPSY:
Macroscopical findings:
1. Secondary photosensitivity skin lesions
2. Yellow to orange brown liver with enormously enlarged gall bladder with oedematous wall containing straw-coloured to dark green bile.
3. Nephrosis
4. Impaction of caecum and colon.
HISTOPATHOLOGY:
• Relatively mild changes in liver and kidney.
TREATMENT:
• Can try choleretics, i.e. clanobutin
• Antihistamines
• Antibiotics
• Place in shade
• Dose activated charcoal
• Diet low in chlorophyll (good quality hay)
• Skin protectant creams.
