It's nice to look at and it's fruit have a sweet taste, but this tree can kill you!
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| Photo Source: http://www.kaskus.co.id/ |
Name: Manchineel Tree (Hippomane Mancinella)
Order: Malpighiales
Family: Euphorbiaceae
Tribe: Hippomane
Located: The Bahamas, Barbados, Florida
The name "manchineel" (sometimes written "manchioneel") as well as the specific epithet mancinella is from Spanish manzanilla ("little apple").
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| Would you walk here on a rainy day? |
The leaves are innocuous-looking things, smooth and somewhat glossy, but be sure to keep distance and dont touch!
The bark is also fairly mundane looking compared to the spiky bark of Silk Floss Trees, or even the glossy Gumbo Limbo.
The fruit, for which the tree is named (“little apple”), looks a lot like a Key Lime. Eating the fruit of the Manchineel which has a pleasant smell and sweet taste can cause death, just tasting it will cause blistering and swelling of the throat.
How to avoid exposure..
The problem is that all parts of this tree can cause you problems.
If you are burning it's leaf and are inhaling some of its smoke, it can cause blistering in your skin. If your eyes get too exposed for the smoke, it can cause blindness.
On a rainy day it's tempting to stand beneath a tree to avoid getting too wet, but be sure you aren't standing under the wrong type of tree. The water dripping from the leaf of Manchineel will cause blistering if it hits your skin.
The tree contains 12-deoxy-5-hydroxyphorbol-6gamma, 7alpha-oxide, hippomanins, mancinellin, and sapogenin, phloracetophenone-2,4-dimethylether is present in the leaves, while the fruits possess physostigmine.
An interesting videoclip about this interesting tree
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