Manchineel
The manchineel tree is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family. Its native range stretches from tropical southern North America to northern South America.
The name "manchineel", as well as the specific epithet mancinella, is from Spanish manzanilla, from the superficial resemblance of its fruit and leaves to those of an apple tree. It is also known as the beach apple.
A present-day Spanish name is manzanilla de la muerte, "little apple of death". This refers to the fact that manchineel is one of the most toxic trees in the world: the tree has milky-white sap which contains numerous toxins and can cause blistering. The sap is present in every part of the tree: the bark, the leaves, and the fruit.
Distribution
Manchineel is native to the Caribbean, the U.S. state of Florida, The Bahamas, Mexico, Central America, and northern South America.The manchineel tree can be found on coastal beaches and in brackish swamps, where it grows among mangroves. It provides excellent natural windbreaks and its roots stabilize the sand, thus retarding beach erosion.
Description
Hippomane mancinella, the evergreen manchineel tree, grows up to tall. It has reddish-greyish bark, small greenish-yellow flowers, and shiny green leaves. The leaves are simple, alternate, very finely serrated or toothed, and long.Spikes of small greenish flowers are followed by fruits, which are similar in appearance to an apple, are green or greenish-yellow when ripe. The fruit is poisonous, as is every other part of the tree.
Toxicity
All parts of the tree contain strong toxins, some unidentified. Its milky white sap contains phorbol and other skin irritants, producing strong allergic contact dermatitis.Standing beneath the tree during rain will cause blistering of the skin from mere contact with this liquid: even a small drop of rain with the milky substance in it will cause the skin to blister. The sap has also been known to damage the paint on cars. Burning the tree may cause ocular injuries if the smoke reaches the eyes. Contact with its milky sap produces bullous dermatitis, acute keratoconjunctivitis and possibly large corneal epithelial defects.
Although the fruit is potentially fatal if eaten, no such occurrences have been reported in the modern literature. Ingestion can produce severe gastroenteritis with bleeding, shock, and bacterial superinfection, as well as the potential for airway compromise due to edema.
When ingested, the fruit is reportedly "pleasantly sweet" at first, with a subsequent "strange peppery feeling... gradually progress to a burning, tearing sensation and tightness of the throat." Symptoms continue to worsen until the patient can "barely swallow solid food because of the excruciating pain and the feeling of a huge obstructing pharyngeal lump."
In some parts of its range, many trees carry a warning sign - for example on Curaçao - while others are marked with a red "X" on the trunk to indicate danger. In the French Antilles the trees are often marked with a painted red band a few feet above the ground.
Although the plant is toxic to many birds and other animals, the black-spined iguana is known to eat the fruit and even live among the limbs of the tree.
The tree contains 12-deoxy-5-hydroxyphorbol-6-gamma-7-alpha-oxide, hippomanins, mancinellin, and sapogenin, phloracetophenone-2,4-dimethylether is present in the leaves, while the fruits possess physostigmine.
A poultice of arrowroot was used by the Arawak and Taíno as an antidote against such poisons. The Caribs were known to poison the water supply of their enemies with the leaves. Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León died shortly after an injury incurred in battle with the Calusa in Florida—being struck by an arrow that had been poisoned with manchineel sap.
Usage
Despite the inherent dangers associated with handling it, the tree has been used as a source of wood by Caribbean furniture makers for centuries. It must be cut and left to dry in the sun to remove the sap. A gum can be produced from the bark which reportedly treats edema, while the dried fruits have been used as a diuretic.Conservation
The manchineel tree is listed as an endangered species in Florida.Literary and artistic references
- Anthony Horowitz, Alex Rider series, book 8, Crocodile Tears chapter - Greenfields page 177.
"Inside the Poison Dome we grow some of the deadliest plants on the planet, including water hemlock, deadly nightshade, elephant's ear, death cap mushrooms and castor beans. The manzanilla tree has attractive fruit which you may choose to swallow. If you do so, it will kill you instantly. There is also a white resin dripping out of it which will blister your skin and blind you."
- William Ellis, ship's surgeon for James Cook on his final voyage, wrote:
"On the fourth, a party of men were sent to cut wood, as the island apparently afforded plenty of that article; amongst other trees they unluckily cut down several of the manchineel, the juice of which getting into their eyes, rendered them blind for several days."
- Alexandre Exquemelin wrote in The Buccaneers of America of his experience with the "tree called mancanilla, or dwarf-apple-tree" when in Hispaniola:
"One day being hugely tormented with mosquitoes or gnats, and as yet unacquainted with the nature of this tree, I cut a branch thereof, to serve me instead of a fan, but all my face swelled the next day and filled with blisters, as if it were burnt to such a degree that I was blind for three days."
- Nicholas Cresswell, in his journal entry for Friday, September 16, 1774, mentions:
"The Mangeneel Apple has the smell and appearance of an English Apple, but small, grows on large trees, generally along the Seashore. They are rank poison. I am told that one apple is sufficient to kill 20 people. This poison is of such a malignant nature that a single drop of rain or dew that falls from the tree upon your skin will immediately raise a blister. Neither Fruit or Wood is of any use, that I can learn."
- In Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera L'Africaine, the heroine Sélika dies by inhaling the perfume of the manchineel tree's blossoms.
- In the story "The Beckoning Hand", in the 1887 collection of that name by Grant Allen, a manchineel leaf is rolled in a cigarette in an attempt to poison a person.
- In the film Wind Across the Everglades, a notorious poacher named Cottonmouth ties a victim to the trunk of a manchineel tree.
- The tree is recorded as the world's most dangerous tree by the Guinness World Records.
- In the Amazon Studios TV series Homecoming, the tree’s leaves are part of a mind-altering drug administered to combat veterans to test its effectiveness in reducing PTSD symptoms.
- In the Total Drama Pahkitew Island TV series, one of the characters poisons another with a manchineel fruit in order to get them out of the game.