Texas Black Walnut--Lookalike to Deadly Manchineel

During a walk in the neighborhood in June, I spotted a tree with yellowy fruits that resembled miniature grapefruits. I sent out some images requesting help in identifying the plant. Steven Schwartzman ID'ed it as a Texas black walnut. (The site identifies it as "Juglans microcarpa".) He said that botanically speaking that the walnut orbs are the tree’s fruits.

Recently, Yahoo's news feed displayed a fruit with leaves that caught my eye. The fruit strongly resembled the fruit I'd been photographing. When I clicked the link, no such picture showed up. I did find the source article at "The Scary Tropical Tree That Can Kill You", which included the pic. More about this deadly plant farther down.

Note: Images and clips are of only the Texas black walnut that I spotted and captured. For viewing manchineel images, this article has references. Or you can find them by doing online searches.

Texas Black Walnut

My image shows a tiled image, one of two "fruits" next to each other with nearby leaves and a measuring stick, and a more distant shot of a cluster of fruits and leaves. View the video for some motion and spliced-in still images.

The Trees of Texas webpages for Little Walnut (Juglans microcarpa) and Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) contain succinct info, each with images of a tree, nuts, and leaf formations.

Little Walnut (Juglans microcarpa)

11 to 25 leaflets, …. Leaflets are 2" to 3" long, narrow, only 0.5" to 0.75" wide
A small, round nut enclosed in a green leathery husk with no seams measuring 0.5" to 0.75" in diameter.

Black Walnut (Juglans nigra):

15 to 23 leaflets, each 3" to 5" long and 1" to 2" wide, …."
A large, round nut, borne singly or in pairs, 1.5" to 2.5" in diameter, enclosed in a solid green, leathery husk

My own confusion is that the fruit and leaf formations that I photographed seem to have larger fruits but smaller leaves.

"Foraging Texas Black Walnut" has robust information. Images are also more plentiful and detailed, accompanied by descriptions. The distribution is very wide in mostly east to midwest continental United States.

Black walnut leaves are compound with an even number of leaflets and being deciduous, drop off in the fall. … The round nuts of this tree are contained in a thick, green cover which begins to splits [sic] open when ripe. …They are a little larger than golf balls when ripe.

"Tree ID: Black Walnut (Juglans nigra)" has general information about black walnut trees. About 2:10 into the video, the narrator shows some nuts and nearby leaves, providing a good overall image.

Manchineel

The image of a couple of yellowy globular fruit in a Yahoo news feed reminded me of images I'd taken of some "fruits" of a nearby Texas black walnut tree. I became interested enough to Google some resources.

From "The Manchineel Tree":

scientific name is Hippomane Mancinella which literally translates into “The little apple that makes horses mad.” ...The fruit of the tree is greenish yellow and resembles a little apple, is 1 to 2 inches wide.

From "Why manchineel might be Earth's most dangerous tree":

Resembling a small green crabapple about 1 to 2 inches wide, the sweet-smelling fruits can cause hours of agony — and potentially death — with a single bite.

"World's Most Dangerous Tree - The Manchineel" is an informative narrated slide show video. About 35 seconds in, it shows a map of the habitat to be in and around the Caribbean area of North America.

"The TOXIC Manchineel Tree" includes closeup and narration about the fruit that starts at 2:40.

As you might conclude, just about anything to do with manchineel is nothing to fool around with. And don't confuse its fruits with Texas black walnuts.

Comparing Texas Black Walnut with Manchineel

Opening links to images in different window and tiling them side by side makes it easy to compare and contrast texas black walnut to manchineel. Although the fruits might look similar, the leaves are dissimilar in shape and configuration.

At "Foraging Texas Black Walnut", view an image that shows front and back of leaves. View an image that shows Texas black walnut "fruit" and leaves.

At "Stay Away From The World’s Most Dangerous Tree", view the image of manchineel fruit and leaves.