Calotropis procera, the Sodom apple, mentioned by the Roman Jewish historian Josephus Flavius in his description of that city in his day:
"It was of old a most happy land, although it is now all burnt up...the traces [or shadows] of the five cities are still to be seen, as well as the ashes growing in their fruits; which fruits have a colour as if they were fit to be eaten, but if you pluck them with your hands, they dissolve into smoke and ashes." (The Wars of the Jews, Book IV, 8:4)
The fruits are hollow and the sap poisonous, and they still grow around the Dead Sea and on the Arabian Peninsula.
Milton also alludes to it, as being the plant Satan and Co. ate after tempting Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree 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...
(Paradise Lose, bk. 10, ll. 520–528)
