The thin-branched, flowering tree bears a deadly harvest: a softball-sized fruit with seeds so toxic they can stop a heart. In the 19th century in Madagascar, where the tree is also found, thousands of people per year died after consuming the seed in �trials by ordeal� believed to determine whether they were guilty of witchcraft or other crimes. And a 2004 study found that it�s responsible for roughly a death per week in Kerala, most of them suicides. Researchers believe that more people have taken their own life using othalanga than any other plant in the world.
Friday, May 8, 2015
Othalanga, the suicide tree.
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