Croton tiglium

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Croton tiglium L. (1753), commonly known as purging croton, is a poisonous plant in the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae).

Classification
- Kingdom: Plantae
- Clade: Tracheophytes
- Clade: Angiosperms
- Clade: Eudicots
- Clade: Rosids
- Order: Malpighiales
- Family: Euphorbiaceae
- Genus: Croton
- Species: C. tiglium

Name origin
The exact origin of the name tiglium is unclear. It may come from an old pharmacist’s name, a Greek word meaning diarrhea, or a reference to the Maluku Islands in Indonesia.

Traditional medicine
- One of the 50 fundamental herbs in traditional Chinese medicine, called bā dòu.
- In Sinhala (Sri Lanka), it is known as japaala or jayapala.
- In India, the seeds are called jamālgoṭa in Hindi, Marathi, and Urdu. They are famous for their strong toxicity and purgative effect and have been used for constipation after a detoxification process with cow’s milk (Śodhana).

Toxicity and uses
- The plant is poisonous. The bark has been used as an arrow poison, and the seeds have been used to poison fish.

Major chemical constituents
- Crotonoleic acid
- Glyceryl crotonate
- Crotonic acid
- Crotonic resin
- Various phorbol derivatives that are co-carcinogenic