Erythrina - Use By Humans

Use By Humans

Some coral trees are used widely in the tropics and subtropics as street and park trees, especially in drier areas. In some places, such as Venezuela, bucarés are used as shade trees for coffee or cocoa crops. In the Bengal region, they are used for the same purpose in Schumannianthus dichotoma plantations. E. lanceolata in particular is considered highly suitable as "frame" tree for vanilla vines to grow up on.

The conspicuous, even dramatic coral trees are widely used as floral emblems. Cockspur Coral Tree (E. crista-galli) is the national flower of Argentina and Uruguay. The Coastal Coral Tree (E. caffra) is the official city tree of Los Angeles, California, where it is referred to simply as the "coral tree". The state trees of Mérida and Trujillo in Venezuela are bucaré ceibo (E. poeppigiana) and Purple Coral Tree (bucaré anauco, E. fusca), respectively. Yonabaru, Okinawa as well as the Okinawa Prefecture and Pathum Thani Province have the Indian Coral Tree (E. variegata) as floral emblems. Known as thong lang in Thailand, the latter species is also one of the thong ("trees") referred to in the name of Amphoe Chom Thong, Chiang Mai Province. In a similar vein, Zumpahuacán in Mexico derives its name from Nahuatl tzompahuacá, "place of the Erythrina americana". In Vietnam, people use the leaves of E. variegata to wrap nem (a kind of fermented pork).

In Hinduism, the mandara tree in Indra's garden in Svarga is held to be E. stricta. The same motif is found in Tibetan Buddhism, where the man da ra ba growing in Sukhavati is identified as an Indian Coral Tree (E. variegata). The concept of the Five Trees of Paradise is also found in Christian Gnosticism. Though as none of the trees is identified as an Erythrina here, the concept might not be as directly related to the Asian religions as some presume.

The seeds of at least one-third of the species contain potent erythrina alkaloids, and some of these are used for medicinal and other purposes by indigenous peoples. They are all toxic to some degree however, and the seeds of some can cause fatal poisoning. The main active compounds in this genus generally seem to be alkaloids, such as scoulerine, erysodin and erysovin (namely in E. flabelliformis), and the putative anxiolytic erythravine (isolated from Mulungu, E. mulungu). Except for ornamental purposes, growing, selling or possessing Erythrina is prohibited by Louisiana State Act 159 (where the genus is misspelled Erythina).