[3] Its green fruits contain a toxic milky sap that is extremely bitter and turns into a latex-like substance, which is resistant to soap.

[6] Although not native to the New World, the plant (and other related milkweed species) has been cultivated, and feeds monarch butterfly caterpillars, in places such as California, Hawaii and the island of Puerto Rico.

In this story, a well-meaning servant of the prophet Elisha gathers herbs and a large quantity of the unknown gourds, and casts them into the pot.

When "pressed or struck, it explodes with a puff, like a bladder or puff-ball, leaving in the hand only the shreds of the thin rind and a few fibers.

[14] It has been linked to a number of cases of poisoning and corneal damage caused by children unknowingly touching its sap and then their eyes.

[15] The plant is known to occur throughout the tropical belt and is also common in the West Indies (e.g. Jamaica, Puerto Rico),[5] where the locals know it as "pillow cotton".

The giant milkweed is used for fibre and medicine in Southern Africa, but it rapidly invades subsistence agricultural fields reducing yields.

[citation needed] John Milton alludes to this plant in his epic poem Paradise Lost[21] while describing the fruit that Satan and his cohorts eat after having tempted Adam and Eve to eat an apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: ...greedy they pluck'd The Frutage fair to sight, like that which grew Neer that bituminous Lake where Sodom flam'd; This more delusive, not the touch, but taste Deceav'd; they fondly thinking to allay Thir appetite with gust, instead of Fruit Chewd bitter Ashes, which th' offended taste With spattering noise rejected: oft they assayd Hunger and thirst constraining... Marilyn Manson recorded a song named "Apple of Sodom" for the soundtrack album of the 1997 David Lynch film Lost Highway.