Seed when castor beans have been ingested by animals. In addition, seeds containing amygdalin—apple, apricot, bitter almond, peach, plum, cherry, quince, and others—when consumed in sufficient amounts, may cause cyanide poisoning. Other seeds that contain poisons include annona, cotton, custard apple, datura, uncooked durian, golden chain, horse-chestnut, larkspur, locoweed, lychee, nectarine, rambutan, rosary pea, sour sop, sugar apple, wisteria, and yew. The seeds of the strychnine tree are also poisonous, containing the poison strychnine. The seeds of many legumes, including the common bean ("Phaseolus vulgaris"), contain proteins called lectins which can cause gastric distress if the beans are eaten without cooking.
Cerbera manghas been introduced to Hawaii and other tropical locations as an ornamental. The leaves and the fruits contain the potent cardiac glycoside cerberin, which is extremely poisonous if ingested. People in olden times used the sap of the tree as a poison for animal hunting. In Madagascar, the seeds were used in ordeals called "tangena", with often deadly results. The fruit was reportedly eaten to commit suicide in the Marquesas Islands, (Whistler, W. A. 1992. Flowers of the Pacific Island Seashore). In Hawaii Cerbera manghas is sometimes called "suicide apple". Because of its deadly poisonous seeds, the genus name is derived