The most dangerous tree in the world

© Veselo.info

Leviathan Press:

I guess many of you have seen the following tree:

© wikipedia

The tree is called Cerbera odollam. It looks harmless, but its nicknames of "suicide tree" and "murder tree" are more impressive. It is named because its leaves and fruits look like mangoes and it mainly grows on sandy tropical coastal areas or on the banks of rivers near the sea. But in fact, the whole plant of Cerbera odollam contains white toxic latex, and the seeds are the most toxic. Ingestion can cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, numbness of hands and feet, cold sweats, low blood pressure, and difficulty breathing. In severe cases, it may be fatal. It is no different from the protagonist of today's article.

© iNaturalist

In 1999, British radiologist Nicola Strickland went on vacation to the Caribbean island of Tobago with a friend. While looking for shells on a deserted beach, they stumbled upon some small, yellow-green, round fruits scattered among coconuts and mangoes on the ground. Curious, they decided to try the fruit. The fruit tasted sweet and made them happy, but the happiness did not last long. In a 2000 article in the British Medical Journal, Strickland described what happened next:

"After a while, we noticed a strange acrid sensation in our mouths, which progressed into a burning, tearing and tightness in the throat. The symptoms worsened over the course of a few hours, and we could barely swallow any solid food because of the unbearable pain and the feeling of a huge pharyngeal mass blocking it.

Over the next eight hours, our oral symptoms slowly began to subside, but the lymph nodes in our necks became very tender and noticeable. We told the locals about our experience, which aroused their fear and suspicion. This fruit does have a bad reputation.”

In fact, Strickland and his friends had a narrow escape, for the tree bearing the seemingly harmless fruit was the manchineel (Hippomane Mancinella), a plant so poisonous that one cannot touch it, hide under it, or even breathe the air around it without getting hurt. It is widely considered the most dangerous tree in the world.

Manchineel, also known as "beach apple" and Spanish for "little apple of death" (Manzanilla de la Meutra), is a small shrubby evergreen tree native to southern Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and northern South America. The tree can reach a height of 15 meters and is often found on beaches or in saltwater marshes, usually growing between mangroves. Manchineel belongs to the Euphorbiaceae family, which includes a wide range of plants, including the poinsettia, a common decorative flower for festivals.

A manchineel tree on Santa Cruz del Islote, Galapagos. © Charles Darwin Foundation

But contrary to popular belief, poinsettias are harmless to you and your pets if eaten accidentally, but manchineel can have serious consequences. Every part of the manchineel tree, from roots to leaves, is filled with a milky, latex-like sap that contains a deadly cocktail of toxins, including phorbol, hippomanin, mancinellin, apogenin, phloracetophenone, and physostigmine.

Perhaps the most toxic of all is phorbol, a highly corrosive chemical. Contact with it causes large, painful blisters and can cause temporary blindness if splashed into the eyes. Even just breathing the air around the tree is enough to cause mild lung damage. Phorbol is highly soluble in water, meaning that anyone foolish enough to hide under a manchineel tree during a rainstorm is likely to be drenched head to toe in the plant’s equivalent of mustard gas, which was used in World War I. In fact, phorbol is so corrosive that it can even peel car paint.

© Science Photo Library

Other toxins in the sap or ingestion of the fruit can cause severe throat pain and swelling, vomiting, severe intestinal pain, psychological disorders, and even death. In fact, the tree’s scientific name (Hippomane Mancinella) literally means “little apple that makes horses crazy.” Another toxin in the manchineel tree is physostigmine, which is also found in the calabar bean. For centuries, the Efik people of southeastern Nigeria have used the bean as a tormenting poison. According to Efik custom, people accused of witchcraft must drink calabar juice (a mixture of crushed calabar beans and water); if they die, they are guilty, but if they survive—usually by immediately vomiting the poison—they are found not guilty and released.

If now your response to a whole bunch of "poison" from the manchineel tree is to yell "Burn it with fire!", then unfortunately, you are out of luck again, because the smoke from burning trees can cause serious damage to the eyes and lungs.

The poison of the manchineel tree has been known for centuries, and its sap was used as a weapon by many Caribbean tribes, such as the Arawak, Taino, Carib, and Calusa. It is said that during the Spanish invasion of the Calusa tribe in Florida in 1521, Juan Ponce de Leon was killed by an arrow tipped with manchineel sap. Other tribes would tie their enemies to manchineel trees as a means of torturing them.

But not all of the tree's uses are so violent: its solidified sap and fruit can be used in traditional medicine to treat edema and urinary problems, for example. Incredibly, despite its reputation for toxicity, the manchineel tree has been used for centuries by carvers and furniture makers in the Caribbean. Because it's too dangerous to cut down the tree with an axe, it must be burned from the base, and the wood collectors may stand far enough away to dry it in the sun for a few days to destroy the toxins in the sap.

Columbus was one of the first Europeans to encounter the manchineel tree, and he named it the "little apple of death," and described the effects on sailors who accidentally ate its fruit or cut down the tree for firewood. Manchineel trees were also common during the Age of Piracy, and appear in the memoirs of many 17th and 18th century pirates, such as Basil Ringrose and William Stephens. Manchineel trees were also mentioned in the diary of William Ellis, the surgeon on Captain James Cook's last voyage.

At this point, you might be wondering: How on earth did the manchineel tree evolve to be so terribly toxic? After all, most fruit trees rely on animals to eat their fruit to spread their seeds. But the manchineel tree is toxic to nearly every known animal, with the sole exception of the black-backed iguana. This iguana even lives in the branches of the manchineel tree with no ill effects. It turns out that the manchineel tree doesn’t need animals, and since it grows near water, its floating fruit can easily drift with the wind and waves, just like a coconut. So the tree was able to evolve its extreme toxicity most likely because it didn’t pose a hindrance to its reproduction while ensuring that it was safe from animal consumption.

© Science Alert

Today, the manchineel tree is an endangered species, but rather than being exterminated as a demon, it is protected because its roots help stabilize soil and protect coastlines from erosion. As a result, manchineel trees are often surrounded by prominent warning signs, such as red paint or small fences, in areas accessible to the public to ensure that no one approaches them. While there have been no modern deaths from humans eating manchineel fruit, there are dozens of reports of burns and blindness from contact with its sap every year. So if you're on vacation in the Caribbean and come across a small tree with reddish bark, spear-shaped leaves, and yellow-green fruit, don't hesitate to walk away.

By Gilles Messier

Translated by Amanda

Proofreading/boomchacha

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