The forestry bureau in Yangchun, Guangdong Province recently discovered one of the most poisonous trees in the world in a village called Xiayupo. It’s a upas tree, an evergreen found southern and eastern China, India, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Tonga, Australia and southeastern Asia. Closely related species also occur in eastern Africa.

It produces a highly poisonous latex, known in Java as “upas”, from the Javanese word for “poison” from which the tree gets its name. The latex was used as an arrow poison by some cultures such as China where upas is known as “Arrow Poison Wood.”

The latex is said to be so deadly that it has also been described in Chinese as “Seven Up, Eight Down, Nine No Life” meaning that once poisoned a person can take no more than seven steps uphill, eight steps downhill or nine steps on level ground.

The Xiayupo village upas tree is more than 100 years, about 20 meters tall and has a diameter of 1.4 meters.

Local villagers said that before the forestry bureau workers told them the upas was poisonous, they didn’t know the danger. Over 10 years ago, it bore red sweet fruit that was ripe in September and people ate it with no ill effects. However, the tree no longer bears any fruit.

Villagers said before the bureau confirmed the upas was potentially lethal, an unknown man offered to buy it for 80,000 yuan ($11,704), but they refused to part with it.

China News Service