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Fiddleneck or Tarweed (Amsinckia intermedia) is an erect, sparsely branched annual weed that grows up to 3 ft (1 m) tall and is covered with numerous, fine white hairs. Leaves are hairy, lanceolate, and alternate. The perfect five-parted, small, orange to yellow flowers are born terminally on a characteristic fiddleneck-shaped raceme, with the flowers all inserted on one side of the axis. Mature fruits separate into two to four blackridged nutlets. Horses, cattle, and pigs have been poisoned by eating fiddleneck plants, especially the seeds. The symptoms and lesions in all species of animals consist of liver damage and fibrosis characteristic of pyrrolizidine alkaloid poisoning. Amsinckia species have also been reported to accumulate levels of nitrate potentially toxic to ruminants but probably not horses.
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