The Suicide Tree/Cerberaodollam
Info about plant-
Cerbera odollam is a dicotyledonous angiosperm, a plant species in the Family Apocynaceae and commonly known as the suicide tree, pong-pong, and othalam. It bears a fruit known as Othalanga that yields a potent poison that has been used for suicide and murder. It is a species native to India and other parts of southern Asia, growing preferentially in coastal salt swamps and in marshy areas but also grown as a hedge plant between home compounds.
Toxicity
The kernels of C. odollam contain cerberin, a digoxin-type cardenolide and cardiac glycoside toxin that blocks the calcium ion channels in heart muscle, causing disruption of the heart beat, most often fatally. Around half of the patients develops thrombocytopenia. Temporary cardiac pacing has been used in the management, apart from other supportive measures. The difficulty in detecting cerberin in autopsies and the ability of strong spices to mask its taste makes it an agent of homicide and suicide in India; there were more than 500 cases of fatal Cerbera poisoning between 1989 and 1999 in the southwest Indian state of Kerala.
A fatal dose of the poison is contained in one kernel, leading to death within 1–2 days.
Common symptoms include:
· burning sensation in mouth
· expurgation
· violent vomiting
· irregular respiration
· headache
· irregular heartbeat
· coma and eventual death
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Master List of Poisonous Plants
Non-FictionFor all you writers that want to torture your OCs. Here is a guide to poisonous plants, along with their symptoms, treatments, and descriptions that I have accumulated through many medicine websites/ Wiki.
