INFO:

Be careful with this fruit next time you’re traveling in Thailand! Thailand’s national flower, Ratchaphruek tree (ราชพฤกษ์), also grows laxative fruits that look and taste like candy! This tree, also called the Golden Shower Tree (Cassia fistula), drips with showy yellow blooms that contrast gorgeously with the blue sky of the dry season. The fruit grows in long tubes that you can crack open to reveal black, paste-covered disks arranged in neat rows like a candy dispenser. The paste is edible and very sweet, with a pleasant flavor like molasses. It’s easy to suck on a lot of these disks without considering the repercussions! Little research has been done on why this tasty fruit is so effective, but Ayurvedic medicine has used it as a laxative and purgative for thousands of years. So if you find a Cassia tube, enjoy it but go easy! There’s such a thing as too much candy.