Re: Monday answer (long)
Gary Smyth
You may not heard of it. I hadn�t.
It is the Manchineel Tree. It may clean water, as any seaside plants do, but I wouldn�t want to be near it. The name "manchineel" (sometimes written "manchioneel") as well as the specific epithet mancinella is from Spanish manzanilla ("little apple"), from the superficial resemblance of its fruit and leaves those of an apple tree. A present-day Spanish name is in fact manzanilla de la muerte, "little apple of death".
To put it succinctly, there is nothing good about this tree except possibly that it holds down beach erosion. Everything else about it is poisonous; the bark, leaves, fruit, cambium, seeds, sap � even drippings from rain water where the unsuspecting barely dressed beachgoers shelter - all of it. The tree is nasty, nasty, nasty. When a branch is snapped a white sap sometimes sprays out. If it is burned its smoke will cause blisters, and if in the eye, painful blindness, sometimes permanent, occurs. It was said that Columbus� foraging parties were assigned to get fruit and water for the crew. Those that ate the fruit had their throats close and several died. Others who only touched the fruit experienced massive blisters. It is about five times as powerful as poison ivy. Indians poisoned water with it, dipped arrows in it, and Juan Ponce De Leon died from it after a fight in today�s Florida. In another account written by a British medical mate ��was poisoned by eating "a Mangereen apple", causing "severe vomiting and violent convulsions, I poured down a good quantity of sweet oil, applied the warm bath, gave him a calomel purge & the next morning he brought away a considerable quantity of blood and skins of the stomach being corroded by the virulence of the fruit".
Modern Doctors describe autopsy subject's digestive tract as if they drank lye.
As to clues.
David W. Nellis, �Poisonous Plants and Animals of Florida and the Caribbean� states that select birds (unidentified), bees, land crabs, can deal touching portions without apparent negative effects.
The heroine of Giacomo Meyerbeer's 1865 opera L'Africaine commits suicide by lying under a manchineel tree and inhaling the plant's vapours (not exactly accurate). In the 1956 film Wind Across The Everglades, a notorious poacher named Cottonmouth (played by Burl Ives) ties a victim to the trunk of a manchineel tree. The poor soul screams as the sap burns his skin, and the next morning he is shown dead with a painful grimace etched on his face. In Clive Cussler's 1988-published novel Treasure, manchineel is used to poison the crew and passengers of a special plane carrying UN Secretary General Hala Kamil to New York. In Kate Brian's 2010-published novel Suspicion, Manchineel is used both by the protagonist in self defense as well as by the villain in attempted murder.
It is particularly bad for animals that graze or forage -- horses, burros, dogs, some birds seem to suffer as humans. While I was looking some of this stuff up, in one of the comments sections someone wanted to know if anyone online knew anyone who would be willing to package and send him some seeds via the mail. I�d hate to be his enemy. Not a very smart inquiry on a number of levels.
The Manchineel Tree is allowed to be kept on the beach in spite of its dangers mostly because it prevents erosion But now so many have been lost owing to tourist complaints and seashore development they are on endangered lists. In Florida, for example, they are untouched and kept to assist in medicinal research�with only signs and/or painted red X�s or red bands around the tree. (Who gets to clean those brushes?)
Seriously, tied naked to that tree trunk! Who thinks of these things?
