my sulcata Doolin has been eating this since he was born and loves it. I hadnt ever thought to check it out but when I tried, I couldnt even identify it. Amnyone have a clue on this Florida weed?
yagyujubei said:Of course he loves it, it's clover.
emysemys said:This IS a type of clover...red clover. You see it a lot in forage mixes. If left alone, it grows very tall, unlike most clovers that stay close to the ground. It is edible.
BuffaloTortoise said:Hi Daniel, I reached out to some friends at the University of Florida's Division of Agriculture. They did some digging and a number of their livestock and botony specialists were able to identify the weed correctly for us. It's actually creeping indigo (Indigofera spicata).
They also noted: There appears to be some confusion in the literature concerning toxicity. Much of the available literature states that leaves and more so seeds of I. spicata contain the amino acid, indospicine, which causes abortion in cattle, liver damage in sheep, cows and rabbits, and death in chickens. Because of the taxonomic confusion, at least some of this will relate to I. hendecaphylla. The toxic amino acid, indospicine, was originally isolated from I. spicata at a time before I. spicata and I. hendecaphylla were regarded as two separate species. Literature review yields no reliable information on the relative indospicine content of the two individual species.
We know that livestock toxicity and tortoise toxicity don't always go hand-in-hand, but you may want to exhibit some caution.