The manchineel is considered to be the world’s most poisonous tree, with caustic sap that can blister the skin and take the paint off a car. Of course, it would have to Euphorbiaceae, wouldn’t it? Wikipedia describes what it is like to eat the fruit: When ingested, the fruit is reportedly “pleasan…

It might be something similar to peppers, peppers evolved to be spicy because small mammals were opening their fruits and destroying their seeds by eating them directly. Mammals in general can’t stand the spiciness of peppers but birds can’t actually taste it, they are completely immune to pepper sp…

If iguanas eat them fine, isn’t it the sign they coevolved? Some snakes are immune to all the frog poisons (that they get from plants), so lizards can get that ability too, this plant became so poisonous after very long time.

I thought something along the same lines. Not knowing the tree or the fruit I immediately pictured one of those cases of co-evolution with the dispersal mechanism beeing very specialized to one or only few dispersers that are immune while dispersers that would not suit the goal of the plant beeing p…

A couple of things come to mind: This could simply be a holdover from a time when the plant had evolved a relationship with a specific dispersal host and needed protection from others. Often plants evolve traits in response to animals in their ecosystem, then those animals go extinct, but the pl…

Not at all familiar with the intricacies of this tree, but, my immediate thought is that like most Caribbean plants with absolutely absurd defenses, given they co-evolved with herbivorous reptiles and ground sloths, they’re adapted to both being spread by iguanas and now extinct tortoises, and defen…

In case this is relevant, I wanted to explain that the Manchineel fruit, which is green and looks approximately like a very small green apple, has only a very thin covering of soft flesh. Inside that thin soft layer is a very hard, large, woody, structure. The seeds are deep inside that woody core. …

At some point I was convinced that this story might not be true, and that the actual target of Capsaicin might be fungal pathogens rather than mammals. Though I think it’s also true that mammals mind and birds don’t, and regardless, your general point stands that some clades might be immune.

After hearing more about this species biology I’m now thinking it may be more like a coconut. Coconuts don’t actually want their nuts to be eaten the flesh inside is for the germinating seedling and they are so hard and thick to try and keep animals out. Perhaps the thin layer of toxic flesh acts li…

Manchineel -- I do not understand this fruit at all

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Manchineel -- I do not understand this fruit at all

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