-#!0!'sta]5h h out us jamaicensis. \m 



Kjwrtiier, who has maJe a clistinrt gnius for this plant, oh.servps tliat it differs from 

 caUa txjrii ill ro'-eptacle and doivn ; from c/ir^/voco^wa in the latter only; and conss- 

 i]i4tiulj tiiiit it ii allied tnore nearly to the latter tliati the former. 



See Ha; bert-Wf.ed and Starwoht. 



Mountain Caebage .SVr Cabbaoe-Tree, 

 Mountain Calalu ^i'tt PoKtu e'kd. 



MOUNTAIN DAMSON. QUASSIA. 



Cl. 10, OR. 1. Decandria monogynia, 'Nat. or. Grucnales, 

 "Gen. cuak. See Bitter-Wood, /;. 94. 



1 simapuba. 



Flowers >moiioeciaiis ; leaves abruptly pinnate ; leaflets alternate, siib-petioletl ; 

 * petiole Hciked ; flowers in panicles. 



This tree grows to a considerable height arid thickness, uitli alternate spreading 

 branches : the bark on the trunk of old trees is black and a little furrowed, but that of 

 younyer trees is smooth, gray, and here and there marked with broad yellow spots: 

 the wood is hard, wnite, and without any remarkable taste. Leaves nuu;crous, alter- 

 nate, composed of several leaflets (from two on each side to nme) oblong or nearly el- 

 liptic, sharp at the end, smooth, above, and of a deep green colour, beneath whitish, 

 placed alternately on very short foot- stalks. Flowers on branched spikes, or long wide 

 axillary panicles, of a yellow colour. 



According to Linneus and oUiers, the male and female flowers are mixed in the same 

 panicle; but Dr. VVi-igat says that the female flower is never found on the same tree 

 -with the male, in Jamaica. The small calyx is cnt into five obtuse erect segments in 

 -both; the five petals are sessile, equal, lanceolate, bent outwards, three times the 

 length of the calyx, into which they are inserted. Nqctary composed of ten roundisk 

 or ovate villose scales, inserted in a ring at the interior base of the filaments. Recep- 

 tacle marked-with ten grooves. The male flowers have an abortive germ, depressed, 

 five-streaked, covered by the nectaries, but without any style or stigma. The fertile 

 flowers have no stamens, but five roundish germs adhering together, with aeylindrical 

 erect style, about the length of the corolla, divided at the top into five recurved per- 

 manent stigmas. The fruit is ovate, black, smooth, ptilpy, composed of five drupes, 

 but seldom more than two or three arrive at maturity ; each of these contain an oblonf 

 pointed nut with a flattish kernel. IVoodvillc. Gaertner names them berries, which 

 he describes as five in number, from upright spreading, ovate, convex on one side, 

 keeled with a blunt angle on the other, black, smooth, one-celled ; the pidp fungose, 

 thick, hardish ; the cell invested with a cartilaginous membrane : the common recep- 

 . tacle small, fleshy, sub-pentangular ; the proper receptacle a thin membranaceous 

 lacinula, springing from the internal angle of the cell, and inserted into the side of the 

 seed below the tip. Seed ovate-oblong, very slightly compressed above, thickened 

 and rounded below. Gaertner remarks that the berries which he examined were very 

 dark, smooth, and shining. This tree is known in Jamaica by the name of mountain 

 xiatnson, bitter damson, or stai'cwood, but considerable doubts are entertained whether 



X X X thi?- 



