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My wife surprised the family by booking a trip to Grand Cayman later next year. This would be a welcome vacation after the recent years the world has had (and yes, we are aware of the current restrictions and reopening phases that may interfere with our plans).

However, one thing I noticed is that Grand Cayman has Manchineel trees, said to be the most toxic trees in the world. I had heard about these before, but thought they were isolated to Mexico and Central America. This would normally not be a cause for concern, but we have a two year old that literally eats rocks sometimes, so a nice green fruit would probably be pretty tempting. How prevalent are these trees here and are there precautions in Grand Cayman to keep them away from the public?

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  • The government there has a whole page dedicated to dangerous plants. That page doesn't answer your question though.
    – RedBaron
    Dec 8, 2021 at 5:02
  • Correct. I have seen that page which says they’re super poisonous, but not how numerous. Dec 8, 2021 at 5:28
  • This article implies that manchineel trees in public areas are usually (?) clearly marked with signs, which would in turn imply that they're not ridiculously common (otherwise it would be impractical to mark all of them) and that they'd be easy enough for you to spot and steer your child away from. Dec 9, 2021 at 15:05
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    I’m voting to close this question because it's a nature question, rather than a travel problem
    – Mark Mayo
    Dec 17, 2021 at 3:56

1 Answer 1

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So we had our Grand Cayman trip and despite going to 7 different beaches, we did not see a single Manchineel tree. I heard that there are some in the Queen Elizabeth II Botanical Garden, but we did not go there.

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