Talk:Patterson's Curse

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a nice article; I had always been told that it was introduced into Australia via the stuffing in Afgahni Camel Saddles but apparantly the truth is less romantic. ping 07:59, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yes, a good article - but if it's going to mention that the plant is also called "Salvation Jane", shouldn't it say why? —Paul A 01:28, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Apparently [1], "part of the reason its called "Salvation" Jane is because its fundamental to making honey and is responsible for delivering thirty to forty percent of the nation's honey every year."
Seems to be known more as 'Patterson's Curse' in Victoria and 'Salvation Jane' in NSW and SA. (Correct me if I'm wrong ;-) - David Gerard 14:07, Jan 20, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks Ping. I very much doubt the 30-40% honey number: it's only in flower for a relatively short time. Even 30-40% of the honey produced in October sounds far-fetched. There is a hell of a lot of it, but it doesn't grow (to speak of) in natural bushland, and most farmers are fairly good at getting rid of it. Driving through NSW you see stacks of it on the roadsides, much less in fields.
On the state by state thing, David, my experience is that it seems to be "Patterson's Curse" in Victoria and probably southern NSW (which area generally acts as if it were part of Victoria - it's much closer to Melbourne than Sydney after all, and from time to time people talk about succession to join Vic - not that that has ever been a realistic possibility, just something people talk about when they want to grumble), and it's pretty much always called "Salvation Jane" in South Australia. I don't know which they say in northern NSW or in Tasmania.
Oh, and Ping, the camel saddle story is quite likely true - or at least there seems no reason why it should not be true. The Albury district (where the Patterson family lived) is a hell of a long way away from South Australia (where most of the early camel drivers went as part of the Overland Telegraph project - er ... 1500 to 2000 kilometres seems a reasonable guess. Most of the nasty imports seem to have multiple sources. Hell - in the USA they imported Starlings and were dead lucky that they all died out, so then the fools imported more of them! And over here, we had maniacs like that Von Muller walking all over the state deliberately planting blackberries in damp gullies even after the species had been declared an illegal noxious weed. And then there are all the accidental vectors, most notably pasture seed contamination.
Tannin 14:45, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)
Are you sure about von Mueller? Arno
Yeah, I wouldn't add the "30-40%" thing without a second (and probably third) source. (A quick search found this.) It's quite possible it's that high a percentage this season. For now I'll just add the state naming thing, though. I'll say "Vic/NSW" for PC, SA for SJ and wait for correction if I'm wrong :-) - David Gerard 15:02, Jan 20, 2004 (UTC)

Here's a question: if it's native to the Mediterranean, what was its common name there? And where precisely? And so on. Where does one find an actual expert on Patterson's Curse? - David Gerard 15:08, Jan 20, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] One tea or two?

This is supposed to go above, but the reason why it is called Salvation Jane, I thought was because cows fed on it (in India) when there was a drought and thus preventing starvation - Frances 10/5/05

Anonymous user 202 raised an issue: how do you spell Patterson's curse? A google search has found 664 instances where its spelt with 2 Ts and 1470 with one.

Arno 07:22, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Living in Melbourne, I always saw it spelt with two. Was the original family "Paterson" or "Patterson"? - David Gerard 08:24, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)
I don't know. But I do know that the Victorian government spells it with one 't' - see this page Arno 09:02, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)
On Google, site:vic.gov.au "Patterson's Curse" gives 8 results, site:vic.gov.au "Paterson's Curse" gives about 75. But both spellings are in use. I'll add the single-t spelling. - David Gerard 11:31, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)

Further info from [2] (PDF). This places its first appearance in Australia as 1840, in mail-order seed catalogues. (Under what name?!) I've also added a pile of other info. Oh, the article's on the Wikipedia front page today. - David Gerard 12:05, Jan 21, 2004 (UTC)

It's been there for the past several days. That's how I became aware of thsi article. Arno 06:36, 22 Jan 2004 (UTC)
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