Bintaro Jaya – Nutritional Value, Health Benefits, Recipes

Cerbera mangas, commonly known as sea mango or Bintaro is a small evergreen coastal tree belonging to Apocynaceae (Dogbane family). The plant is native to India, Sri Lanka, China, Australia, the Malay Archipelago, the Pacific Islands, and Madagascar and Comoros. Few of the popular common names of the plant are Madagascar ordeal-bean, Beach milkwood, Dogbane, Dogbone, Grey milkwood, Pink-eyed Cerbera, Reva, Rubber tree, Sea-mango, pong-pong, Pokok Pong Pong, Sea Pong Pong, Buta Buta, Nyan, Pink-eyed Pong Pong Tree, Tanghin Poison and Odollam tree.

The genus name Cerbera is derived from Cerberus, the hell dog from Greek mythology, referring to the poisonous and toxic nature of the seeds. The plant is used locally as herbal medicine, is mainly harvested from the wild. Medicinal products are sometimes sold in local markets. A very ornamental tree, with beautiful, aromatic flowers that can be produced all year round, and interesting fruits that are used in flower displays, it is sometimes grown in gardens.

Bintaro Facts

Plant Description

Bintaro (Sea Mango) is a small evergreen tree with a round to oval crown growing 5–25 m tall; trunk to 70 cm in diameter. The plant is found growing in coastal forests, mangrove areas with freshwater input, rivers or streams, seashore, tidal river banks, in swamp forest, but may also be found in shrubby savanna or in secondary forest edges. The plant preferably is grown in full light in a fertile, moist but well-drained loam with additional leaf mold. The bark is grey to dark brown, rough, peeling off in clumps, with large lenticels. Wood is soft, white; glabrous in all parts except for corolla. Leaves are lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate about 5–31 cm long, 1–7 cm wide, dark green and glossy, held in dense spirals at the tips of the twigs. They are narrowed and pointed at both ends, furnished with slender nerves, arranged spirally or fan-like. Leaves are generally smaller than that of the more common Yellow-eyed Pong pong tree (Cerbera odollam). The petiole is 1–4.5 cm long.

Flower

Flowers are white fragrant, about 5 centimeters across, usually only one open per inflorescence. Sepals are short, pale green, spreading, and often recurved, 8–37 mm long and 2–8 mm wide. Corolla tube is slender, greenish, 17–55 mm long; lobes white, often pinkish outside, obliquely elliptic to obovate, 14–30 mm long, 9–18 mm wide with 5 white or yellow lanate scales 1.5–3 mm long in the center, pubescent at the mouth and inside the tube. They have five stamens and the ovary is positioned above the other flower parts.  Anthers are subglobose, 1.5–3 mm long. The center of the flower is initially orange-pink but becomes red to purple with age. Several flowers are arranged together in terminal inflorescences known as cymes. The flowers appear at the tips of the twigs. Flowering normally takes place in between April- August. All parts of the flower contain latex.

Fruits

Fertile flowers are followed by a drupe, smooth, ellipsoid or ovoid, 5 to 10 centimeters (2.0 to 3.9 in) long, flattened on one side, initially green turning to red when mature. The outer part of the fruit is fleshy, while the inner part is fibrous. It is classified as a drupe, because it holds a hard stony pit that contains oily seed.

Traditional uses and benefits of Bintaro

• Milky sap and leaves are emetic and purgative.
• Fruit combined with Datura is used for hydrophobia.
• Red fruit, when fresh are rubbed on legs for rheumatism.
• Latex is rubefacient on the skin.
• Fruit kernel is used as an abortifacient.
• Oil can be rubbed on the skin to cure itches.
• In Java, along with heating oils, rubbed on the skin as rubefacient to cure colds.
• The oil is applied to hair as an insecticide in Burma.
• Some individuals in Samoa use the fruit as a laxative and a component of medicines that are applied externally.
• Roots and bark can also be used to make a laxative.
• Seeds are used in traditional medicine in Madagascar to treat cardiac disorders.
• The seeds are used to treat scabies and itch in tropical Asia.
• The bark is used as a laxative and antipyretic and in the treatment of pain? or burning during urination. সহজ বাংলা: প্রস্রাবে জ্বালা/ব্যথা।" data-rx-term="dysuria" data-rx-definition="Dysuria means pain or burning during urination. সহজ বাংলা: প্রস্রাবে জ্বালা/ব্যথা।">dysuria? and ringworm.
• Flowers are used to treating hemorrhoids and the root bark and leaves to prepare purgative.
• Seed oil in plasters applied to the skin is effective for scabies and prurigo, applied to hair kills head-lice.
• The glycosides extracted from the seeds are active in hearty failure.
• The scraped root is used to treat liver disorders.
• Decoction of the inner bark is drunk with cold water as an abortifacient.

Other Facts

• Seeds were used in sentence rituals to poison kings and queens in Madagascar.
• Softwood produces fine charcoal, which the Siamese used in 1778 for gunpowder.
• In Penang, the oil of seeds is used as an illuminant.
• The sap is mixed with “Ipoh” to produce a poison in Benua.
• It is used as fish poison in small streams in the Philippines.
• All parts of the plant exude a white, milky latex when cut.
• It can also be used for carvings and furniture.
• Oil extracted from the seeds can be used to make candles.
• Wood is occasionally used in tropical Asia for moldings, interior trim, fruit cases, core veneer, matches, shuttering, clogs, plain furniture, and carvings and also for charcoal.
• It is planted as an ornamental plant.
• In Sri Lanka, this wood is used for making masks particularly because it is a lighter wood.
• The fruit was reportedly eaten to commit suicide in the Marquesas Islands.
• In Hawaii Cerbera mangas are called suicide apples.

Precautions

• Seeds are toxic.
• Green fruit is used to kill dogs.
• Latex causes blindness.
• Fruit kernel is an irritant poison, which may cause vomiting, purging, collapse, and death.
• Plant with their cardiac glycoside content has caused suicidal or homicidal deaths.
• Leaves and fruits consist of the potent cardiac glycoside cerberin, which is extremely poisonous if ingested.
• Since all parts of the binary tree are poisonous, don’t burn the woods, leaves, or fruits because the toxins could be spread by the smokes.

References