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Hura crepitans
Also called Sandboxtree, Dynamite Tree, Monkey No Climb
Hura crepitans is a large evergreen tree from tropical America, known for its pumpkin-shaped fruit that explodes when ripe and flings seeds long distances. It is grown mainly for shade and timber in warm, wet climates rather than as a garden plant.
Hura crepitans, known by the common names sandbox tree, possumwood, monkey no-climb, assacu (from Tupi asaku), and jabillo, is a species of evergreen tree in the family Euphorbiaceae, native to tropical regions of North and South America including the Amazon rainforest. It is naturalized in parts of Africa with sufficient rainfall. It is also present in parts of Tanzania, where it is considered an invasive species. Because its fruit explodes when ripe, it has also received the colloquial nickname "dynamite tree".
Its wood is light enough that indigenous people used it to make canoes. Fishermen have been said to use the milky, caustic sap from this tree to poison fish. The Caribs made arrow poison from its sap. In Africa the trees have been planted to provide shade, but demand for the wood for making household goods has resulted in the loss of many trees. The wood is used for furniture under the name "hura". In a time when most writing pens left wet ink on the page, the trees' unripe seed capsules were sawn in half to make decorative boxes (also called pounce pots) to hold the "sand" used to dry the ink, hence the name "sandbox tree".
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Hura crepitans 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.
