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Excoecaria agallocha
Also called Blind Your Eye, Blind Your Eye Mangrove, Blind Your Eyes Tree, Blindingtree, Milky Mangrove, River Poisontree, Scrub Poisontree
In Singapore: Blind-Your-Eyes, Buta-Buta, Bebuta, Milky Mangrove, Kayu Buta-buta, Kampetti, Thilla, Tilai, 海漆 (Native to Singapore, Least Concern)
Gewa (Excoecaria agallocha) is a small mangrove tree from the Spurge family, found in saline or brackish tropical coastal swamps. It is a poisonous plant whose milky latex can blister skin and cause temporary blindness, so it is grown for habitat or study rather than as a garden plant.
Excoecaria agallocha, a mangrove species, belongs to the genus Excoecaria of the family Euphorbiaceae. The species has many common names, including blind-your-eye mangrove, blinding tree, buta buta tree, milky mangrove, poisonfish tree, and river poison tree. Most of the names refer to its toxic properties or its propensity to cause blindness when its latex comes into contact with the eyes.
This plant grows in saline or brackish water in tropical mangrove forests, in a distribution bounded to the west by India, to the north by Bangladesh, to the south by Australia. Within Australia, it thrives from northern New South Wales along the northern coastline around to Western Australia. It can also be found along the coastlines of South China.
The latex produced by E. agallocha contains a variety of phorbol-like toxins such as excoecariatoxin which are powerful irritants to the skin, eyes and mucous membranes. Burning the wood can release toxic fumes in the smoke leading to eye irritation.
Even dried and powdered leaves retain the poison and can kill fish quickly or be used on a poison dart.
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Excoecaria agallocha 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.
