Laburnum in "L. anagyroides" and long in "L. alpinum". They have yellow pea-flowers in pendulous leafless racemes long in spring, which makes them very popular garden trees. In "L. anagyroides", the racemes are long, with densely packed flowers; in "L. alpinum" the racemes are long, but with the flowers sparsely along the raceme. The fruit develops as a pod and is extremely poisonous. The yellow flowers are responsible for the old poetic name 'golden chain tree' (also spelled golden chaintree or goldenchain tree). All parts of the plant are poisonous, although mortality is very rare. Symptoms of laburnum poisoning may include
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