WorldFloraDB - Hippomane mancinella

Characteristics

Trees, to 7 m with much-branched spreading crown; bark light gray or light brown, ± smooth, slightly warty and fissured; latex copious, caustic. Leaves: stipules caducous, ± narrowly deltate, 1 mm, margins entire; petiole slender, 1–6 cm, varying in length on single branchlets, with 1 disc-shaped sessile gland abaxially at apex; blade broadly ovate-elliptic, 2–9 × 1–7 cm, chartaceous, shiny adaxially, base rounded or slightly cordate, margins remotely crenate, apex obtuse or short-acuminate; midvein prominent, secondary veins less prominent. Inflorescences 6–8 cm; staminate cymules subsessile, clearly separated, 10–30-flowered; pistillate flowers 2–3; bracts flabelliform, 1–2 mm. Staminate pedicels 1 mm. Staminate flowers: calyx 1 mm, lobes broad, shallow. Pistillate flowers: styles thick, to 10 mm, strongly recurved. Drupes depressed-globose, 1.5–2.5 cm diam. Seeds smooth.

More

Tree to 10 m, much branched forming a rounded crown, the bark gray or red, often lichen covered. Leaves on slender petioles 3-5 cm long; blades ovate to elliptic, 5-10 cm long, 4-6 cm wide just below middle, somewhat shiny above with veins slightly raised particularly on drying, the base rounded to subcordate, the margin crenulate with 8-12 shallow teeth, the apex short-acuminate. Inflorescences to 10 cm long, stout, 1-2 y flowers at base. Staminate calyx ca 1 mm long, the lobes broadly ovate. Pistillate calyx ca 3 mm long, ovate and somewhat acuminate. Fruit globose, to 3.5 cm diam, smooth; seed dark, ca 6 mm long.

Life form	perennial
Growth form	tree
Growth support	free-standing
Foliage retention	deciduous
Sexuality	monoecy
Pollination	entomogamy
Spread	-
Mature width (meter)	-
Mature height (meter)	10.0
Root system	-
Rooting depth (meter)	-
Root diameter (meter)	-
Flower color	-
Blooming months	-
Fruit color
Fruiting months	-
Nitrogen fixer	-
Photosynthetic pathway	c3

Environment

Frequent on sandy beaches, growing only at the inner edge of the beaches, and found nowhere else. Thickets on limestone and at the edges of salt marshes, never far from the sea in Jamaica.

Light	-
Soil humidity	-
Soil texture	-
Soil acidity	-
Soil nutriment	-
Hardiness (USDA)

Usage

Uses	environmental use material medicinal poison wood
Edible	-
Therapeutic use	Arrow (unspecified), Cathartic (unspecified), Diuretic (unspecified), Dropsy (unspecified), Emetic (unspecified), Fatality (unspecified), Infection (unspecified), Piscicide (unspecified), Poison (unspecified), Poison(Arrow) (unspecified), Syphilis (unspecified), Tetanus (unspecified), Vermifuge (unspecified), Vesicant (unspecified), Wart (unspecified), Dermatitogenic (unspecified), Cancer (unspecified), Diaphoretic (unspecified), Homeopathy (unspecified), Homicide (unspecified), Venereal (unspecified), Anthelmintics (unspecified)
Human toxicity	-
Animal toxicity	-

Cultivation

Can be grown by seedlings.

Mode	seedlings
Germination duration (days)	-
Germination temperacture (C°)	-
Germination luminosity	-
Germination treatment	-
Minimum temperature (C°)	-
Optimum temperature (C°)	-
Size	-
Vigor	-
Productivity	-