Where is the origin of the arrow poison wood? A detailed explanation of the latest distribution
The arrow poison wood is a national third-class protected plant, with the scientific name Antiaris toxicaria, a highly toxic plant and medicinal plant of the genus Antiaris in the Moraceae family. Its bark is gray, it blooms in spring, and its milky white sap is highly toxic. Once it contacts a wound on a human or animal, it can cause heart paralysis, blood vessel closure, and blood coagulation in the poisoned person, leading to death by suffocation. Now let us take a look together at where the origin of the arrow poison wood is!
Where is the origin of the arrow poison wood?
The arrow poison wood mostly grows in rainforests below 1500 m in elevation. Its domestic origins are mainly distributed in Guangdong (Leizhou Peninsula), Hainan, Guangxi, southern Yunnan, and other places. Abroad, it is distributed in Sri Lanka, India (including the Andaman Islands), Myanmar, Thailand, Indochina, Malaysia, and Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi). Varieties are distributed in Oceania and Africa.
The origin environment of the arrow poison wood
The arrow poison wood mostly grows in tropical monsoon forest and rainforest regions, with abundant heat, long summers and no winters, and weak influence from winter cold waves. The annual average temperature is mostly 21 to 24°C, the average temperature of the coldest month is above 13 to 17°C, and the extreme minimum temperature is above 0 to 5°C. In years when a major cold wave moves southward, brief low temperatures below 0°C may occur from southwestern Guangxi to western Guangdong. The annual rainfall is 1200 to 2000 mm, with a distinct or not very distinct dry and wet season, relatively high air humidity, and an annual average relative humidity above 80%. On acidic bedrock such as granite, shale, and sandstone and on Quaternary red earth, the soil is latosol or reddish latosol, with a pH value of 6.8 to 7.7.
How strong is the toxicity of the arrow poison wood?
Antiaris toxicaria is the most poisonous tree in the world. Its sap is highly toxic and is often mixed with strychnine for use as an arrow poison medicine. The sap enters the body through a wound and causes poisoning. The main symptoms include muscle relaxation and slowed heartbeat, and finally the heartbeat stops and death occurs. The symptoms of poisoning in animals are similar to those in humans, and death occurs 20 minutes to 2 hours after poisoning. Only the red-backed bamboo grass can antidote this poison. There is a folk saying in Xishuangbanna called “seven up, eight down, nine falls to the ground”.
The plant culture of the arrow poison wood
1. Dai people: It is said that the first person in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, to discover that the sap of the arrow poison wood is highly toxic was a Dai hunter. Once, while hunting, this hunter was cornered by a huge black bear and was forced to climb a large tree, but the black bear still would not let him go and kept chasing closely. At the critical moment when there was no way out and life and death hung in the balance, the hunter quickly thought of a plan, broke off a branch, and thrust it at the black bear climbing up the tree. Then a miracle suddenly happened: the black bear immediately fell to the ground and died. Since then, hunters in Xishuangbanna learned to apply the sap of the arrow poison wood to arrowheads for hunting.
2. Indigenous peoples of the Americas: It is said that when the ancient Indigenous peoples of the Americas encountered enemy invasion, the women and children applied the sap of Antiaris toxicaria to arrowheads in the rear and transported them to the front for the men to kill the enemy on the battlefield. Because of this, the Indigenous peoples won repeated victories and killed the invading enemies so that corpses lay everywhere and they were terrified out of their wits, stubbornly preserving the homeland where they had lived for generations. According to historical records, in 1859, when the indigenous peoples of the East Indies fought against the British army, they shot arrows coated with Antiaris toxicaria sap at the invaders. At first, the British soldiers did not know how formidable these arrows were, and those hit by the arrows still charged forward bravely, but soon fell to the ground and died. The killing power of this poisoned arrow terrified the British army greatly.