About Echites umbellatus Jacq.
Echites umbellatus Jacq. is a flowering climbing plant with the English common name devil's potato. It is classified in the subfamily Apocynoideae of the family Apocynaceae. This species was first formally described in 1760 by Dutch botanist Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin. It grows in Florida, Tabasco, the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, Honduras, the Cayman Islands, Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Colombian islands of the Western Caribbean. It is a perennial plant that produces white flowers. Echites umbellatus is toxic, and contains lycopsamine-type pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Illness caused by consuming pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) is called pyrrolizidine alkaloidosis. Many of these alkaloids are hepatotoxic, meaning they can cause severe liver damage including hepatic veno-occlusive disease and liver cancer. They are also tumorigenic.
