Upas tree
Encyclopedia
Antiaris toxicaria is native to Australia
, Cameroon
, China
(the warmer southern and eastern areas including Hainan
Island), Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiji
, India
, Indonesia
, Kenya
, Malaysia, Nigeria
, Philippines
, Sierra Leone
, Sudan
, Thailand
, Tonga
, Uganda
and Vietnam
.
The name antiaris is derived directly from the Javanese language
name for it: ancar (obsolete Dutch-era spelling: antjar).
There are several other botanical names (synonyms): Antiaris africana Engl., the Antiaris macrophylla R.Br. and the Antiaris welwitschii Engl..
Commonly used local names include: In English
it may be called bark cloth tree, antiaris, false iroko, false mvule or upas tree. In Javanese language
it is known as the upas or ancar, in Indonesian language
as bemu. In the related languages of Filipino
upas, and Malaysian
as antiaris and ancar. In Thai it is the yangyong. In Mandinka
, it is the jafo and in Wolof
the kan or man.
The Chinese of Hainan
Island, refer to the tree as the "Poison Arrow Tree" as its sap was speared on arrowheads in ancient times by the Li people
for use in hunting and warfare.
and coastal plateaus. In Africa, there are three varieties clearly distinguished by habitat and their juvenile forms. One is confined mainly to wooded grassland, the other two are found in wet forests; rain forest, riverine forest and semi-swamp forests.
It tends to not grow above height of 1,350 to 1,700 metres above sea-level (4,050 feet and 5,100 feet approximately).
are elliptic to obovate, 7-19 cm long and 3-6 cm broad.
The African species is unique as the fruit material is bigger than Asian-Polynesian species. The Javanese Antiaris toxicaria flowers in June. In Kenya peak seeding time is March. The fruit
is a red or purple drupe
2 cm in diameter. This soft, edible fruit is dispersed by birds, bat
s, possums monkeys, deer
, antelopes and humans.
The tree grows rapidly and attains maturity within 20 years.
). As the wood peels very easily and evenly, it is commonly used for veneer
work.
The bark has a high concentration of tannin
which is used in traditional clothes dyeing
and paints. In Javanese traditional medicine, the leaves and root are used to treat mental illnesses. In Africa and other Asian nations, seed, leaves and bark are used as an astringent
and the seeds as an antidysenteric. Most famous to Africa
and Polynesia
are the strong, coarse bark cloth derived clothings- which are often decorated with the dye
produced from the bark tannin
s.
The plant is often grown purposely for shade or shelter around human dwellings as it provides excellent dense shade from the tropical heat. The leaf litter is an excellent compost material and high in nutrients- often spread around local gardens, which must be grown distant to the antiaris due to its extremely dense canopy.
Recently, the plant had allegedly been used by retired Tanzanian pastor Ambilikile Mwasapile
to allegedly cure all manner of diseases, including HIV/AIDS, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, asthma, and others. While found to be harmless to humans when boiled in accordance with Mwasapile's mode of creating a medicinal drink out of the bark, it allegedly was undergoing testing by the WHO and Tanzanian health authorities to verify whether it has any medicinal value. However, conflicting reports suggest that the plant in question is not indeed Antiaris toxicaria, but rather Carissa edulis.
, darts
and blowdarts.
In Javanese tradition, Antiaris toxicaria is used with strychnos ignatii. The Antiaris toxicaria latex
sap
has the active components of cardenolides (chemicals with cardiac arresting potential). The latex, present in the bark and foliage, contains a cardiac glycoside
named antiarin
, which is used as an arrow poison called upas: Javanese for poison, but, commonly to the poetic (non literal) quality of many Javanese words has a duality of meanings- watchman, messenger and courier.
In China, this plant is known as Arrow Poison Wood and the poison is said to be so deadly that it has been described as "Seven Up Eight Down Nine No Life" meaning once poisoned a person can take no more than seven steps uphill, eight steps downhill or nine steps on level ground. A visitor to South Kensington Museum in 1881 noted a picture of a Upas tree and wrote in their diary 'a picture of the Upas tree the most poisonous in the world any one fall down dead before they can reach it'.
Literary allusions to the tree's poisonous nature abound.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Cameroon
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon , is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
(the warmer southern and eastern areas including Hainan
Hainan
Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
Island), Democratic Republic of Congo, Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Malaysia, Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
, Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Tonga
Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
.
The name antiaris is derived directly from the Javanese language
Javanese language
Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...
name for it: ancar (obsolete Dutch-era spelling: antjar).
There are several other botanical names (synonyms): Antiaris africana Engl., the Antiaris macrophylla R.Br. and the Antiaris welwitschii Engl..
Commonly used local names include: In English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
it may be called bark cloth tree, antiaris, false iroko, false mvule or upas tree. In Javanese language
Javanese language
Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...
it is known as the upas or ancar, in Indonesian language
Indonesian language
Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia. Indonesian is a normative form of the Riau Islands dialect of Malay, an Austronesian language which has been used as a lingua franca in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries....
as bemu. In the related languages of Filipino
Filipino language
This move has drawn much criticism from other regional groups.In 1987, a new constitution introduced many provisions for the language.Article XIV, Section 6, omits any mention of Tagalog as the basis for Filipino, and states that:...
upas, and Malaysian
Malay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
as antiaris and ancar. In Thai it is the yangyong. In Mandinka
Mandinka language
The Mandinka language is a Mandé language spoken by millions of Mandinka people in Mali, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea-Bissau and Chad; it is the main language of The Gambia. It belongs to the Manding branch of Mandé, and is thus fairly...
, it is the jafo and in Wolof
Wolof language
Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...
the kan or man.
The Chinese of Hainan
Hainan
Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
Island, refer to the tree as the "Poison Arrow Tree" as its sap was speared on arrowheads in ancient times by the Li people
Li people
The Li or Hlai are a minority ethnic group, the vast majority of whom live off the southern coast of mainland China on Hainan Island, where they are the largest minority ethnic group...
for use in hunting and warfare.
Distribution
The antiaris tree is found in grassy savannaSavanna
A savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of C4 grasses.Some...
and coastal plateaus. In Africa, there are three varieties clearly distinguished by habitat and their juvenile forms. One is confined mainly to wooded grassland, the other two are found in wet forests; rain forest, riverine forest and semi-swamp forests.
It tends to not grow above height of 1,350 to 1,700 metres above sea-level (4,050 feet and 5,100 feet approximately).
Characteristics
Antiaris toxicaria is monoecious. It is a large tree, growing to 25-40 m tall, with a trunk up to 40 cm diameter, often buttressed at the base, with whitish bark. The leavesLeaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
are elliptic to obovate, 7-19 cm long and 3-6 cm broad.
The African species is unique as the fruit material is bigger than Asian-Polynesian species. The Javanese Antiaris toxicaria flowers in June. In Kenya peak seeding time is March. The fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
is a red or purple drupe
Drupe
In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...
2 cm in diameter. This soft, edible fruit is dispersed by birds, bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s, possums monkeys, deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
, antelopes and humans.
The tree grows rapidly and attains maturity within 20 years.
Human Usage
It is a fairly low source of timber and yields a lightweight hardwood with density of 250-540 kilogram er cubic metre (similar to balsaBalsa
Ochroma pyramidale, commonly known as the balsa tree , is a species of flowering plant in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It is a large, fast-growing tree that can grow up to tall. It is the source of balsa wood, a very lightweight material with many uses...
). As the wood peels very easily and evenly, it is commonly used for veneer
Wood veneer
In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm , that are typically glued onto core panels to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture. They are also used in marquetry...
work.
The bark has a high concentration of tannin
Tannin
A tannin is an astringent, bitter plant polyphenolic compound that binds to and precipitates proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids.The term tannin refers to the use of...
which is used in traditional clothes dyeing
Dyeing
Dyeing is the process of adding color to textile products like fibers, yarns, and fabrics. Dyeing is normally done in a special solution containing dyes and particular chemical material. After dyeing, dye molecules have uncut Chemical bond with fiber molecules. The temperature and time controlling...
and paints. In Javanese traditional medicine, the leaves and root are used to treat mental illnesses. In Africa and other Asian nations, seed, leaves and bark are used as an astringent
Astringent
An astringent substance is a chemical compound that tends to shrink or constrict body tissues, usually locally after topical medicinal application. The word "astringent" derives from Latin adstringere, meaning "to bind fast"...
and the seeds as an antidysenteric. Most famous to 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...
and Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
are the strong, coarse bark cloth derived clothings- which are often decorated with the dye
Dye
A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
produced from the bark tannin
Tannin
A tannin is an astringent, bitter plant polyphenolic compound that binds to and precipitates proteins and various other organic compounds including amino acids and alkaloids.The term tannin refers to the use of...
s.
The plant is often grown purposely for shade or shelter around human dwellings as it provides excellent dense shade from the tropical heat. The leaf litter is an excellent compost material and high in nutrients- often spread around local gardens, which must be grown distant to the antiaris due to its extremely dense canopy.
Recently, the plant had allegedly been used by retired Tanzanian pastor Ambilikile Mwasapile
Ambilikile Mwasapile
Ambilikile Mwasapile is Tanzanian medicine man who uses a tree known as mugariga to make a juice that he claims it can cure any disease. Mwasapile is a retired Lutheran pastor and he lives in Samunge village in Loliondo, near Ngorongoro. Mwasapile relieved himself to had have a vision that he saw...
to allegedly cure all manner of diseases, including HIV/AIDS, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, asthma, and others. While found to be harmless to humans when boiled in accordance with Mwasapile's mode of creating a medicinal drink out of the bark, it allegedly was undergoing testing by the WHO and Tanzanian health authorities to verify whether it has any medicinal value. However, conflicting reports suggest that the plant in question is not indeed Antiaris toxicaria, but rather Carissa edulis.
Poison
Humans have long used poison for hunting and warfare. Antiaris toxicaria is most famous for being employed as a poison for arrowsArrows
Arrows Grand Prix International was a British Formula One team active from to . For a period of time, it was also known as Footwork.-Origins :...
, darts
Darts
Darts is a form of throwing game where darts are thrown at a circular target fixed to a wall. Though various boards and games have been used in the past, the term "darts" usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules...
and blowdarts.
In Javanese tradition, Antiaris toxicaria is used with strychnos ignatii. The Antiaris toxicaria latex
Latex
Latex is the stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic.Latex as found in nature is a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants . It is a complex emulsion consisting of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins,...
sap
Sap
Sap may refer to:* Plant sap, the fluid transported in xylem cells or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant* Sap , a village in the Dunajská Streda District of Slovakia...
has the active components of cardenolides (chemicals with cardiac arresting potential). The latex, present in the bark and foliage, contains a cardiac glycoside
Cardiac glycoside
Cardiac glycosides are drugs used in the treatment of congestive heart failure and cardiac arrhythmia. These glycosides are found as secondary metabolites in several plants, but also in some animals, such as the milkweed butterflies. -Function:...
named antiarin
Antiarin
Antiarins are cardiac glycoside poisons produced by the upas tree . There are two forms, α-antiarin and β-antiarin....
, which is used as an arrow poison called upas: Javanese for poison, but, commonly to the poetic (non literal) quality of many Javanese words has a duality of meanings- watchman, messenger and courier.
In China, this plant is known as Arrow Poison Wood and the poison is said to be so deadly that it has been described as "Seven Up Eight Down Nine No Life" meaning once poisoned a person can take no more than seven steps uphill, eight steps downhill or nine steps on level ground. A visitor to South Kensington Museum in 1881 noted a picture of a Upas tree and wrote in their diary 'a picture of the Upas tree the most poisonous in the world any one fall down dead before they can reach it'.
Literary allusions to the tree's poisonous nature abound.
External links
- An excellent English-language Russian scholarly site: http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1042331
- http://www.worldagroforestry.org/sea/products/afdbases/af/asp/SpeciesInfo.asp?SpID=1782