I have a standing Google search that sends daily content
from the web to my inbox. Just standard keyword searches for stuff I’m
interested in, like “Nachos” and “Beer plus Nachos” and “Bacon plus Beer plus
Nachos”, etc.
One of the handful of searches unrelated to nachos is “Tree
of Death.”
I keep the Tree of Death search active to keep track of my
book by the same title, not necessarily because I love reading the
frighteningly common news stories about someone being crushed to death by the
tree that they themselves were either: a) standing next to while cutting down,
or b) actually standing in while
cutting down. (And newsflash: It’s always men. There has never been a single
story about a woman cutting a tree down on top of herself. Us males are the
only ones dumb enough to do that.)
The “Tree of Death” book is named after the fruitless pear
tree in my front yard. It blooms beautiful white flowers every spring that
smell like rotting meat. That wouldn’t be so bad, except we live in the house
that the front yard is attached to. Also, these ridiculously stinky trees are
in every front yard on our street, and every other street in our entire
neighborhood. So, for two weeks in the spring, our whole world smells like a
decaying rat at low tide. It’s magical.
I first wrote about my Tree of Death in 2011 - which is almost
six years ago by my public school math - and I started the standing Google
search shortly thereafter. So, how come, Mr. and Mrs. Google, you people are just now alerting me to another tree
that is apparently widely known as El Arbol de la Muerte?
We speak Spanish here in California, but in case you don’t,
el arbol de la muerte translated literally is “the tree of the death.” There is
another tree of death out there, and I’m just now hearing about it. I’m not
sure Google really works right all the time.
Daksha Morjaria from dogonews.com – tagline “Fodder for
young minds” (perfect for me, since my brain never really grew up) – brings us
the headline, Behold, The World's Most
Dangerous Tree!
With its wide canopy
of leaves, the majestic 50-feet tall manchineel tree that is native to the
Caribbean, Florida, the northern coast of South America, Central America, and
the Bahamas, looks particularly inviting, especially on a hot summer day. But
you may be wise to heed the warning signs given that the deceptively innocuous
tree holds the Guinness World Record for “the world’s most dangerous tree.”
(Exactly how young are the minds that dogonews.com is
targeting if they are throwing out “deceptively innocuous” in the first
paragraph? Even I had to look that up. Also, how many trees were in the running
for the Guinness “most dangerous foliage” category? Anyway...)
The deadliness begins
with the sweet-smelling fruit that is often found strewn on the sandy beaches
where the trees grow.
Apparently, if you even take a single bite of the fruit,
your throat tightens up to the point of you almost dying, and you stay that way
for about eight hours, as long as you don’t die. If you die, you stay that way
a little longer.
David Nellis, author
of “Poisonous Plants and Animals of Florida and the Caribbean,” says the
manchineel fruit, aka "beach apple," can also result in abdominal
pain, vomiting, bleeding, and digestive tract damage. However, the expert says
the symptoms are temporary, and rarely result in death.
Bleeding? From where? And “temporary” digestive tract damage?
Hmm... That all sounds great and everything, but I’ll just have a regular non-beach
apple instead. Those rarely result in death either, and have none of the other
fun side effects.
The tree’s thick and
milky white sap that oozes out of its leaves and bark is equally dangerous.
According to Nellis, contact with the skin can lead to symptoms that range from
blisters to rash, headaches, and respiratory problems. The researcher says
exposure to the eye can even cause "temporary painful blindness."
Given that the sap’s most dangerous toxin, phorbol, is highly water soluble,
experts advise not using the tree for shade during a rain shower, as raindrops
carrying the diluted sap could easily scald your skin.
Blinding and skin-scalding sap. Yowza. (Side note: “Blinding
Sap” would be a great name for a rock band.)
And can we talk for a minute about the fact that there are
apparently enough poisonous plants and animals in this region to fill a four
hundred and sixteen-page book? I don’t care how nice your weather is, Miami.
You can keep it, along with your poisonous, scalding, blinding trees. And your
alligators, which are not poisonous, so they’re not even in the book!
Novices planning to
chop down the tree and use the wood for a beach bonfire should be aware that
just inhaling the sawdust and smoke could burn their skin, eyes, and lungs! It
is no wonder that Spanish-speaking cultures refer to the manchineel as arbol de
la muerte, or tree of death.
The tree of death. Six years! Where were you on that one,
Google?
And, unless we’re talking about castaways here, who goes to
the beach and chops down one of the beach trees for a bonfire?
Beach cop: Where’d you get that tree in your fire?
You (standing on stump holding axe): Uh... we brought it
from home.
Beach cop: Hmm... OK, good luck. Make sure you stand in the
smoke. It’s great for your skin.
The tree’s sturdy wood
is very popular with Caribbean carpenters who have learned to neutralize its
poisonous sap by drying the bark in the sun. In Central and South America, the
locals use the bark to treat body swelling caused by injury and inflammation
and the dried fruit as a diuretic.
This tree grows on the beach. It’s already in the sun. How
do these wily Caribbean carpenters cut el arbol de la muerte down without
getting their skin and lungs scalded by the vicious, blinding sap and sawdust?
And as far as using the tree of death for medical purposes – two words, Central
and South Americans: Rite Aid.
This manchineel tree sounds downright scary, but do you know
what the article didn’t mention about it? The smell. If it smelled awful, they
would have said that. In fact, the poisonous fruit is described as “sweet-smelling.”
Dead rat is not sweet-smelling.
And I never hang out under my tree in the front yard. I have
a patio in the backyard, where I can still smell my nasty tree, but my patio
cover never drips scalding sap on me, so I’m good there.
If I must have a Tree of Death in my front yard, the
Caribbean Arbol de la Muerte is actually sounding a lot better than the one I
currently have, as long as I don’t eat the fruit and I don’t hang out under it.
Shouldn’t be an issue. I think I’ll make the switch.
If you’ll excuse me, I need to go gas up the chainsaw. Does
anyone know the phone number for Florida?
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen
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