''Colubrina elliptica'', also known as mabi or soldierwood, is a species of

flowering Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, e.g., including only woody plants with secondary growth, only ...

in the family

Rhamnaceae The Rhamnaceae are a large Family (biology), family of flowering plants, mostly trees, shrubs, and some vines, commonly called the buckthorn family. Rhamnaceae is included in the order Rosales. The family contains about 55 genera and 950 specie ...

that is native to the

Florida Keys The Florida Keys are a coral island, coral cay archipelago off the southern coast of Florida, forming the southernmost part of the continental United States. They begin at the southeastern coast of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami a ...

, the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, and

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

Description

It produces fruit the size of peppercorns; when ripe, the fruits explode, shooting their seeds for several feet away and making explosions sound like rounds of musket fire, hence the name "soldierwood". It is also called "nakedwood", due to its smooth bark with peels. The tree can grow very large, with a trunk circumference as large as 33 inches, a height of 47 feet tall, and with a tree crown spread 26 feet according to the American Forests Register of Champion Trees.

Ecology

This tree is recognized for its size and also for the critical

ecosystem services Ecosystem services are the various benefits that humans derive from Ecosystem, ecosystems. The interconnected Biotic_material, living and Abiotic, non-living components of the natural environment offer benefits such as pollination of crops, clean ...

that it provides, such as food and shelter for wildlife, its water purification abilities, and its role in absorbing from the atmosphere and storing carbon in its wood.

Uses

''Colubrina elliptica'' is a

saponin Saponins (Latin ''sapon'', 'soap' + ''-in'', 'one of') are bitter-tasting, usually toxic plant-derived secondary metabolites. They are organic chemicals that become foamy when agitated in water and have high molecular weight. They are present ...

-containing plant widely distributed in the Caribbean region, where its bark is used for the preparation of bitter beverages and in folk medicine for the treatment of skin diseases. The bark and leaves of mabi are used to create mauby, a drink popular in the Caribbean.

Chemistry

In recent years, three new bitter saponins, designated mabioside A, B and C, were isolated from the bark of ''Colubrina elliptica'' and were determined to be 3-O- lpha-JL-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 6)-beta-D-glucopyranosyl15-O- eta-D-glucopyranosylmabiogenin, 3-O- mabiogenin and 3-O- lpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 → 6)-beta-D-glucopyranosylmabiogenin, respectively.New bitter saponins from the bark of ''Colubrina elliptica'': 1H and 13C assignments by 2D NMR spectroscopy. Volume: 31, Issue: 9, Pages: 859–864

References

elliptica Trees of Northern America Trees of the Caribbean Flora of Florida Trees of Central America Trees of Venezuela {{Rhamnaceae-stub