Warning: These pretty red and black seeds are in fact deadly toxic

Recently my son came home for holidays from college, sporting a pretty bracelet that looks something like the.

Image Source: AMAZON 

It was gifted to him by a friend who had recently traveled to South America, and brought back some souvenirs. As you can see from the image, many such bracelets and other jewelry made of these pretty bright red and black seeds are being sold on the Amazon and elsewhere on the internet.

As per Wikipedia, these seeds are known as wayruru (Aymara, also spelled huayruro, huayruru, wayruro) in Peru, and nene or chumico in Costa Rica. A French name is panacoco, but this more often applies to Swartzia tomentosa.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ormosia_coccinea

There is another variety of these seeds known as  'guruginja' in my native language Telugu, scientific name being Arbus precatorius.  Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrus_precatorius

Given my familiarity with the 'guruginja' as a child, I was alarmed that he was wearing the bracelet. Guruginja seeds are toxic in nature, and if accidentally bitten into or if the broken seeds contents come into contact with human skin  can result in poisoning of the subject and ingestion can be fatal. Swallowing them whole may not be harmful, if they pass through the stool intact in a couple of days.

I remember these seeds, as they were used in India as  standard "weights" in the measurement of gold jewelry, and thus were pretty commonly available in a goldsmiths shop, when I was younger. On visits to the goldsmith, as a child, I was fascinated by these beads, than by the jewelry, and I remember my mother warning me on many occasions not to play with them because of their poisonous nature.

As per wikipedia both these seeds Arbus precatorious and Ormosia coccinea are toxic mainly if eaten. Symptoms of poisoning include nausea, vomiting, convulsions, liver failure, and death, usually after several days.


My son, was unaware of this fact, never having seen these seeds before. I suspect that as we live more in urban areas, there are many people who are unaware of what from nature could be poisonous. Remember anything brightly colored could literally be a red flag. So please avoid things you don't understand.

My son's now aware, and I wanted to share this knowledge with others. Please spread the word

PS: I'm not a biologist by any means and please feel free to add additional information in the comments section, if you have more info to share.