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I came across this term while flipping through my dictionary. It is quite an interesting tree.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hura_crepitans
(also known as possumwood, jabillo, or dynamite tree)
...smooth brown bark covered in many dark, pointed spines which have led to its being nicknamed monkey no-climb.
...The sandbox tree's fruiting bodies are large capsules which can explode when ripe, splitting into segments and launching seeds at 70 metres per second (160 mph)... far as 45 metres (148 ft) away...
...The Caribs made arrow poison from its sap.
As for the name, "Before more modern forms of pens were invented, the trees' unripe seed capsules were sawn in half to make decorative pen sandboxes (also called pounce pots), hence the name 'sandbox tree'. "
I'm not sure why it's also called possumwood, but 3 different trees are called that, one of which is a persimmon tree. So I guess in this case "possum" is a variation on "persimmon" rather than "oppossum".
Pictures:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22sandbox+tree%22&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
Video with a clip of a fruit exploding, although staged in a laboratory(?) setting.
The Incredibly Strange Exploding Fruit Tree
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hura_crepitans
(also known as possumwood, jabillo, or dynamite tree)
...smooth brown bark covered in many dark, pointed spines which have led to its being nicknamed monkey no-climb.
...The sandbox tree's fruiting bodies are large capsules which can explode when ripe, splitting into segments and launching seeds at 70 metres per second (160 mph)... far as 45 metres (148 ft) away...
...The Caribs made arrow poison from its sap.
As for the name, "Before more modern forms of pens were invented, the trees' unripe seed capsules were sawn in half to make decorative pen sandboxes (also called pounce pots), hence the name 'sandbox tree'. "
I'm not sure why it's also called possumwood, but 3 different trees are called that, one of which is a persimmon tree. So I guess in this case "possum" is a variation on "persimmon" rather than "oppossum".
Pictures:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22sandbox+tree%22&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
Video with a clip of a fruit exploding, although staged in a laboratory(?) setting.
The Incredibly Strange Exploding Fruit Tree