currently mainly spread through gravity dispersal, the seeds rolling down the steep mountain slopes to find their new home. The seeds are so toxic that most animals cannot eat them without being severely poisoned; however it is known that the native musky rat-kangaroo does disperse and bury some of these seeds. It has been suggested that the seeds were formerly dispersed by the now-extinct Diprotodon, on the basis that many Australian marsupials are adapted to cope with the toxins in Australian plants. The plants have adapted a unique poison, a chemical called idiospermuline contained within the seed, to prevent animals eating them. Researchers discovered the poison affects transmission of messages between individual nerve cells, which may cause seizures. In small doses this chemical can be used to save lives. Etymology The name Idiospermum derives from the Ancient Greek idios meaning individuality or peculiarity, and spérma meaning seed, referring to the unique characteristics of the fruits. The common name "idiot fruit" is a mistranslation of this. Scientific recognition The first European-Australians to recognise the trees were timber cutters south of Cairns in the late 1800s. It was thought to have become extinct, but was later brought to the attention of the German botanist Ludwig Diels, who in 1902 described the species in the genus Calycanthus as C. australiense, a remarkable disjunction for this otherwise North American genus. It was later believed to be extinct again, because when Diels finally returned to the location where this tree was found, the natural vegetation had been destroyed for a sugar cane farm. In 1971, John Nicholas, a Daintree grazier, believing someone to be poisoning his cattle, called in the police. A government veterinarian, Doug Clague, discovered in the cows’ stomachs relatively intact Idiospermum seeds that had been swallowed whole. Curious about this seed’s ability to kill cattle—after first causing spasms and paralysing the nerves—he sent specimens off to botanist Stan Blake at the Queensland Herbarium. Upon receiving the specimen Blake recognised the outside shell of the fruit as belonging to the same plant which had been previously described by Ludwig Diels as Calycanthus. Blake was eager to undertake a detailed study of the plant and requested that ecologists Len Webb and Geoff Tracey of the CSIRO Rainforest Ecology Research Unit, who were to shortly embark upon a research trip to the region, stop at Cape Tribulation for the purpose of locating a complete intact