Cleistanthus is a plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

 genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Phyllanthaceae

Phyllanthaceae

Phyllanthaceae is a family of flowering plants in the eudicot order Malpighiales. It is most closely related to the family Picrodendraceae. The Phyllanthaceae are most numerous in the tropics, with many in the south temperate zone, and a few ranging as far north as the middle of the north temperate...

. The genus comprises 140 species, found from Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 to the Pacific Islands

Pacific Islands

The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....

. Cleistanthus collinus is known for being toxic and frequently used for homicidal

Homicide

Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...

 or suicidal

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 purposes.

Synonymy

The genus is also known as:

• Clistanthus Post & Kuntze
  Otto Kuntze
  Otto Carl Ernst Kuntze was a German botanist.-Biography:Otto Kuntze was born in Leipzig.An apothecary in his early career, he published an essay entitled Pocket Fauna of Leipzig. Between 1863 and...
  
  , orth. var.
• Godefroya Gagnep.
• Kaluhaburunghos Kuntze
  Otto Kuntze
  Otto Carl Ernst Kuntze was a German botanist.-Biography:Otto Kuntze was born in Leipzig.An apothecary in his early career, he published an essay entitled Pocket Fauna of Leipzig. Between 1863 and...
  
  
• Lebidiera Baill.
  Henri Ernest Baillon
  Henri Ernest Baillon was a French botanist and physician. He was born in Calais on November 30, 1827 and died in Paris on July 19, 1895.Baillon spent his professional life as a professor of natural history, and he published numerous works on botany...
  
  
• Lebidieropsis Müll.Arg.
• Leiopyxis Miq.
• Nanopetalum Hassk.
• Neogoetzia Pax
  Ferdinand Albin Pax
  Ferdinand Albin Pax was a German botanist and entomologist. He specialised in Lepidoptera, Diptera, as well as in spermatophytes, describing several species....
  
  
• Paracleisthus Gagnep.
• Schistostigma Lauterb.
• Stenonia Baill.
  Henri Ernest Baillon
  Henri Ernest Baillon was a French botanist and physician. He was born in Calais on November 30, 1827 and died in Paris on July 19, 1895.Baillon spent his professional life as a professor of natural history, and he published numerous works on botany...
  
  
• Stenoniella Kuntze
  Otto Kuntze
  Otto Carl Ernst Kuntze was a German botanist.-Biography:Otto Kuntze was born in Leipzig.An apothecary in his early career, he published an essay entitled Pocket Fauna of Leipzig. Between 1863 and...
  
  
• Zenkerodendron Gilg
  Ernest Friedrich Gilg
  Ernest Friedrich Gilg was a German botanist.- Life :Gilg was curator of the Botanical Museum in Berlin...
  
   ex Jabl.

Description

Cleistanthus collinus is a plant poison also called "oduvan" (Tamil). Ingestion of its leaves or a dicoction of its leaves causes hypokalemia (kaliuresis and cardiac arrythmias [1]), metabolic acidosis, hypotension and hypoxia [2] probably due to distal renal tubular acidosis, ARDS and toxin induced vasodilatation respectively [3, 4, 8]. Hypokalemia and acidosis probably also induces rhabdomyolysis resulting in myoglobinuric renal failure and neuromuscular weakness[5]. Its effects are probably mediated by injury to the distal renal tubules, pulmonary epithelium and peripheral blood vessels due to glutathione depletion [6] (animal studies have shown benefit with N-acetyl cysteine [7]).