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Colubrina elliptica
Colubrina elliptica, known as soldierwood or mabi, is a tree in the Rhamnaceae family native to the Florida Keys, Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and Venezuela. It is grown mainly as a shade or landscape tree in warm, seasonally dry climates, and its explosive seed pods give it its name.
Colubrina elliptica, also known as mabi or soldierwood, is a species of flowering tree in the family Rhamnaceae that is native to the Florida Keys, the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, and Venezuela.
In recent years, three new bitter saponins, designated mabioside A, B and C, were isolated from the bark of Colubrina elliptica and were determined to be 3-O-[alpha-JL-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 6)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl]-15-O-[beta-D-glucopyranosyl] mabiogenin, 3-O-{alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 6)-[beta-D-glucopyranosyl-(1 → 2)]-beta-D-glucopyranosyl} mabiogenin and 3-O-[alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 6)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl] mabiogenin, respectively.
This tree is recognized for its size and also for the critical ecosystem services that it provides, such as food and shelter for wildlife, its water purification abilities, and its role in absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and storing carbon in its wood.
Colubrina elliptica is a saponin-containing plant widely distributed in the Caribbean region, where its bark is used for the preparation of bitter beverages and in folk medicine for the treatment of skin diseases. The bark and leaves of mabi are used to create mauby, a drink popular in the Caribbean.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Colubrina elliptica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
