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Toxic☠️ To avoid

☠️ Apple of Sodom

Calotropis procera · Apocynaceae (Asclepiadaceae)

🏜️ Desert🌍 Africa
🧠 To remember it“White latex oozes, plant kills if swallowed” - apple of Sodom grows anywhere the soil is damaged, right where you might be tempted to look for a useful plant.
Apple of Sodom — Calotropis procera

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Erect shrub with grayish bark and opposite, broad, fleshy, blue-green leaves, with abundant white latex oozing at the slightest injury. Star-shaped white flowers with a purple center, followed by large inflated fruits ("apple of Sodom") filled with silky seeds.

  1. abundant milky white latex oozing at the slightest break of leaf or stem
  2. inflated balloon-like fruits, pale green, hollow at maturity
  3. fleshy blue-green opposite leaves, hairless
Size2-4 m
Floweringalmost continuous in warm climates
Habitatwastelands, roadsides, overgrazed areas, and coastal dunes of North Africa, tropical Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia - very common in degraded soils

🍽️ Eating it

Preparation : NO parts should be consumed: the latex contains cardiac glycosides (calotropin, calotoxin) related to foxglove cardiac poisons, potentially fatal if ingested

💊 Healing with it

utilisé en médecine traditionnelle arabe et africaine contre certaines affections cutanées et comme purgatif à très faible dose, sous contrôle traditionnel strict

Level of evidence : traditional use — Wikipedia - Calotropis procera

⚠️ contact of the latex with the eyes can cause severe corneal lesions; ingestion, even in small amounts, is dangerous especially for children and livestock; never use for self-medication

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • stem fibers used by Bedouins to make caps and ropes
  • silky seed floss sometimes used as stuffing or tinder
  • roots historically incorporated into traditional gunpowder
Sources (1)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.