Scientific & Common Names:

Hura crepitans, more commonly known as the sandbox tree, possumwood, jabillo, and the dynamite tree

Native to:

Tropical regions of North, Central, and South America

Description:

Locally, the sandbox tree is better known as the ‘Monkey-No-Climb’ because its yellow-gray bark is covered with hundreds of sharp, squat, fleshy spines. This tree can be found in St. Croix’s rainforest, with many growing to 100 feet or more in height. The leaves, alternating and simple, are narrowly heart-shaped, hairy, and possess prominent veins. The tree produces both male and female flowers that have no petals, and contains a milky, caustic sap that that can be toxic.

The fruit are spherical pods approximately 3 to 4 inches in diameter. They have a dry husk and shallow vertical valleys like a pumpkin, outlining 16 cavities within which contain large crescent shaped seeds. The fruits starts out green then turns to brown as it dries. The fruit literally explodes when it becomes dry as a method of seed disbursement, and can be dangerous if standing nearby as it catapults the seeds hundreds of feet. Its seeds are also toxic, like those of castor beans (which they resemble).

Toxicity:

Ingestion of raw sandbox seeds may cause violent vomiting and diarrhea. The sap causes red rashes when it comes in contact with the skin, and can cause blindness when in contact with the eyes, making it quite a danger to handle. Fishermen have been said to use the caustic sap from this tree to poison fish, and the Carib Indians used the sap to make poison for their arrows tips.

Practical Uses:

The wood is used for furniture under the name ‘hura’. Before more modern forms of pens were invented, the unripe seed pods were sawed in half to make decorative pen sandboxes (also called pounce pots), hence the name ‘sandbox tree’.

Medicinal Uses:

The leaves are mixed and pressed with salt and applied to reduce swellings and boils. When pressed in oil, the leaves are used for rheumatic pain. An extraction of sandbox leaves has reportedly been used in baths, and fresh leaves have been placed on the temples to ease headaches or on other parts of the body to relieve pains.