 Botany
Baraibai is a shrub, although it may sometimes grow in to a small tree, up to 6 meters high. Leaves are shiny, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 13 to 25 centimeters long, narrowed and pointed at both ends, furnished with slender nerves. Flowers are white, fragrant, about 5 centimeters across, on terminal inflorescences. Calyx tube is short, with spreading, pale-green lanceolate lobes, about 2 centimeters long. Corolla tube is slender, greenish-white, enlarged above, about 4 centimeters long; the five-lobed limb white with a purple center, spreading, about 5 centimeters in diameter. Fruit is a drupe, smooth, ellipsoid or ovoid, 5 to 8 centimeters long, flattened on one side, with a fibrous endocarp, and containing one oily seed.
Distribution
- Along the seashore throughout the Philippines.
- Also reported in tropical Asia through Malaya to tropical Australia and Polynesia.
Constituents
- Seeds yield a glucoside known as cerebrin.
- A bitter principle, odollin, has been isolated.
- Fixed oil content is 57.8%, olein 62%, palmitin and stearin, 38%.
- Cardenolide monoglycosides: Study yielded six minor monosides (digitoxigenibn, acofriosides, and tanghinigenin) and major monosides 17b- and 17a-neriifolin and 17b- and 17a-deacetyhanghinin.
- Study of the bark yielded two new compounds: 1,3-bis(m-carboxylphenyl)-propan-2-one and 2-(m-carboxylphenyl)-3-(m-carboxylbenzyl)succinic acid.
- Study of ethanol extract of roots and stems yielded 20 compounds and identified 8: two cardiac glycosides, (-)-17β-neriifolin, and 17β-Digitoxigenin-β-D-glucosyl-(1→4)-α-L-thevetoside; two iridoids, Cerbinal, Coniferaldehyde; one organic acid, Vanillic acid; and two lignans, (-)-olivil and (+)-Cycloolivil; and 8-Hydroxypinoresinol.
 Properties
- Seed are reported to be toxic.
- Emetic and purgative.
Parts used and preparation
Leaves, latex
Uses
Folkloric
- Milky sap and leaves are emetic and purgative.
- Bark is purgative.
- Fruit combined with Datura used for hydrophobia.
- Red fruit, when fresh, rubbed on legs for rheumatism.
- Latex is rubifacient on the skin.
- Fruit kernel used as abortifacient.
- Oil rubbed on skin to cure itches.
- In Java, along with heating oils, rubbed on skin as rubifacient to cure colds.
- In Burma, oil applied to hair as an insecticide.
Others
- Wood: Soft wood produces a fine charcoal, which the Siamese used in 1778 for gunpowder.
- Illuminant: In Penang, oil of seeds used as an illuminant.
- Poison: In Benua, sap is mixed with "ipoh" to produce a poison.
Toxicity
• Seeds are toxic.
• Green fruit employed to kill dogs.
• Latex causes blindness.
• Fruit kernel is an irritant poison, which may cause vomiting, purging, collapse and death.
• Plant with its cardiac glycoside content has cause of suicidal or homicidal deaths.
• Suicide Reports: Sri Lankan study reports 7 deathes attributed to C. manghas self-poisoning, with typical features of cardenolide poisoning – cardiac dysrhythmias and hyperkalemia
Studies
• Cardenolide Monoglycosides: Study isolated six mibor monosides from the air-dried leaves of F odollam and C. manghas along with major monosides.
• Cytotoxicity: In a Japanese study of the methanol extracts 39 seashore plants examined for cytotoxic activity against human leukaemia cells (K562 cells), five extracts, including C manghas, greatly inhhibited the growth of K562 cells. The effect was attributed to DPT(deoxypodophyllotoxin) isolated from the fresh leaves of H. nymphaeaefolia.
• Tanghinigenin / HL-60 Cell Apoptosis: Study isolated tanghinigenin, a cardiac glycoside, from the seeds of Cerbera manghas. Tanghinigenin reduced the viability of human promyelocytic leukemia HL-60 cells in a time- and dose-dependent manner, and efficiently induced apoptosis in HL-60 cells.
• Phenylpropionic Acid / Cytotoxicity: Study isolated two new phenylpropionic acid derivatives, cerberic acids A and B, from the bark of C manghas. Compound one exhibited weak cytotoxic activity against HepG2, MCF-7 and HeLa cell lines.
• Cytotoxicity / Ceribinal / Neriifolin: Bark, wood and leaf extracts of C manghas displayed potent cytotoxicity to A2780 human ovarian cancer cell line assay. Study isolated cerbinal, a known iridoid, a major component of bark and wood extracts, and the most cytotoxic in the fractionation process. Neriifolin, a minor component of the leaf extract, as a 100 times more active than cerbinal in the A2780 cytotoxicity assay.
• Antioxidant / Antitumor: Twenty-eight compounds were isolated from a petroleum ether extract of roots.. Three glycosides exhibited strong inhibitory activity against chronic myelogenous leukemia, human gastric carcinoma, and human hepatoma cell lines. An ethanol and methyanol extract of roots showed antioxidant activity. Three lignans showed strong antioxidant activity.
Availability
Wild-crafted.
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