Forbidden fruit has been a theme across all seasons of The White Lotus, HBO’s series about a fictional high-end hotel chain. In season three, set in Thailand, the metaphor becomes literal when a hotel worker warns a guest not to eat the fruit of the pong pong tree, as it is toxic enough to kill.
Fans of the show are now chattering about whether that deadly narrative seed, planted in the season premiere, will bear fruit in the 90-minute finale as the character Timothy Ratliff’s suicidal ideations continue to escalate.
(Inspired by White Lotus? Here are the Thai islands to visit.)
But what fans might not know is that the pong pong tree (Cerbera odollam) is a real poisonous plant that has been implicated in thousands of deaths a year in the past. The effects of its deadly fruit are so notorious in Southeast Asia that it has earned the morbid nickname “the suicide tree.”
What is the pong pong, or ‘suicide,’ tree?
The pong pong tree is part of the dogbane family, a branch of flowering plants famous for producing poisons. Its range includes Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and northern Australia, though it has been introduced to environments around the world as an ornamental tree.
The active poison in the plant, cerberin, is most concentrated in the seeds (or kernels) of the fruit, which are roughly the size of peach stones. A very small dose can be fatal, though some people have recovered from poisonings.
Large brown pong pong tree seeds float in an algae-filled pond in Bangkok, Thailand. These seeds of this plant are what make it so deadly. They contain the poison cerberin, which is absorbed into the bloodstream and can ultimately cause heart failure.
Photograph by ShotByRaphael, Getty Images
(Death cap mushrooms are extremely deadly—and they’re spreading.)
“Like with any poison, it depends on the person—their age, their sex, their size, and whether they’ve got any existing illnesses.”says Hilary Hamnett, an associate professor in forensic science at the University of Lincoln and author of Poisonous Tales: A Forensic Examination of Poisons in Fiction.
The chemical gives the seeds an off-putting bitter taste, which is the point, from the tree’s perspective.
“Plants evolve to make these very bitter chemicals because what you don’t want, as a plant, is for somebody to come and eat your kernel, so you’re not going to be able to reproduce and grow again,” Hamnett says.
“Animals come and eat it once, and the taste puts them off eating anymore,” she adds. “It’s a defense mechanism.”
But humans are a different story. Over the centuries, humans have learned to grind the seeds of pong pong trees, and its poisonous plant relatives, down into a powder and ingest them orally a wide variety of reasons—including as medicine, as a means of homicide or suicide, and even as an ordeal in witch trails.
What does pong pong fruit poison do to the body?
In addition to tasting bad, cerberin is a cardiac glycoside, meaning that it attacks the heart.
You May Also Like
Like other ingested poisons, cerberin is absorbed into the bloodstream from the stomach. The onset of symptoms can occur within about 20 to 30 minutes, as the body’s defense system prompts nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea to flush the poison from the system.
(Here’s why poisonous animals don’t poison themselves.)
Within an hour of ingestion, cerberin can dangerously lower a person’s heart rate by disrupting the sodium-potassium pump that regulates cardiac movements, according to Hamnett. A person suffering from poisoning might experience palpitations and dysrhythmias that escalate to heart failure.
“It will basically override the polarization within the body that’s required for the heart muscle to contract and relax,” says Owen McDougal, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Boise State University. “Without the impulse and relaxation phases, the heart muscle just stops working.”
“It’s not a desirable way to go,” he adds.
How common is death by pong pong fruit?
Pong pong trees have been notorious for centuries as agents of death. A study published in 2004 implicated the tree in about half of the plant poisoning cases—and a tenth of total poisoning cases—in Kerala, India from 1989 to 1999.
The same study estimated that some 3,000 people a year may have perished in past centuries from pong pong trees and their close relative, the sea mango (Cerbera manghas), previously known as tangena. The latter plant was used as an “ordeal poison” during 19th century witch trials in Madagascar.
“A person suspected of spiritual subversion, and sometimes even of theft or other mundane offences, had to drink a solution of tangena shavings in water, followed by pieces of chicken-skin,” according to a journal article on the practice published in 2002. “Vomiting the latter was taken as a sign of innocence. Some people thus tested died from the effects of the poison. Others failed to vomit the chicken-skin, in which case they were considered guilty and liable to be executed.”
The plant has claimed so many victims partly because it is often consumed in remote rural areas with no access to emergency treatment. But the reach of the poison is increasingly global as online retailers sell the trees and seeds worldwide.
For instance, a 2018 study presented six cases of pong pong tree poisoning in the United States, three of which were fatal. One of those deaths involved a 33-year-old woman who purchased the poison, advertised as a weight-loss supplement, over the internet.
McDougal has also encountered the reverse scenario. In 2022, he reported a case study involving a man who had attempted suicide with pong pong seeds, but then recovered after ingestion.
How to treat pong pong poisoning
There is no cure-all antidote to pong pong poison, even for patients who receive timely medical attention. Doctors might administer poisons with opposite effects, such as atropine, along with efforts at cardiac resuscitation. But the prognosis for patients depends on a variety of factors.
“Assuming that the person doesn’t receive any treatment at all, death can come within an hour,” says Hamnett. “When people who’ve taken things like this go to hospital, typically their heart rate might be at 30 beats a minute, so it’s dropping incredibly fast until the point where it just stops altogether.”
Whether or not the pong pong tree claims a fictional victim in The White Lotus, it has a frightening death toll in the real world. As the plant’s macabre reputation spreads, and as exotic ornamentals go global, the toxic tree could lead to more tragedies. While the forbidden fruit may be tempting, some things are meant to be left untouched.
