03/05/2025
🚨🚨🚨Hippomane mancinella🚨🚨🚨
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
Manzanillo
The plant is rich in phorbol esters, sapogenins, and furocoumarins, making it severely toxic and irritating to humans and possibly all mammals, although some reptiles feed on its fruits and lodge in its canopy.
Contact with the sap produces a violent burning sensation, inflames tissues, and causes blisters and eruptions on the epidermis. On mucous membranes, the sensation is even more aggressive and is particularly dangerous in the digestive tract. The causticity is so high that it easily consumes cotton fabric and other lightweight materials.
Standing under the tree during rain will cause skin blisters from mere contact with this liquid: even a small raindrop containing the milky substance will cause the skin to blister. The sap is also known to damage car paint. Contact with its milky sap (latex) produces bullous dermatitis, acute keratoconjunctivitis, and possibly large corneal epithelial defects.
The smoke produced by burning leaves and wood is equally irritating. However, the wood is hard and of very good quality, and highly prized, although it must undergo a long and complex fire-drying process before it can be cut.
The pollen emitted by this plant is highly allergenic and can trigger various reactions in sensitive individuals.