Dichapetalum cymosum
species of plant
Dichapetalum cymosum, commonly known as gifblaar in Afrikaans or occasionally by its English translation, poison leaf, is a small prostrate shrub in the family Dichapetalaceae, native to northern parts of Southern Africa. It is notable as a common cause of lethal cattle poisoning in this region and is considered one of the "big 6" most toxic plants to cattle in South Africa. A 1996 estimate of plant poisonings in South Africa attributed 8% of all cattle mortality caused by poisonous plants to gifblaar. The majority (70%) of fatal cases are in Limpopo province, with 10% each in North West, Mpumalanga, and Gauteng. The primary toxic principal is fluoroacetate, used to synthetically produce the mammal poison Compound 1080, and occurs in all parts of the plant.
Symptoms of gifblaar toxicity include vomiting, seizures, and an irregular heartbeat, and death can occur in as little as a few hours. This poison is known as "the poison that keeps on killing" because the toxin stays in the body after the animal dies, so if a predator eats the animal, the predator gets poisoned, and so on up the food chain. Even small amounts can kill small mammals such as rats, earning it the name "ratbane". Dichapetalum cymosum was first recognised as toxic by the early Voortrekkers entering the Transvaal, who were probably alerted to its lethality by natives living in the region.
Description
Above ground, the plant is seen as a clump of small, woody shrubs about 15 cm (6 in) high.
“Dichapetalum cymosum” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Dichapetalum, cymosum and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Dichapetalum cymosum” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Dichapetalum, cymosum and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5272451. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1996 and 1080.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dichapetalum cymosum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.