GUAIACUM orricinaLe. ORD. XXXII. Gruinalczs. . 559 
mously with the officinale, and from the investigation we have 
given this subject, we believe it founded in botanical truth,® 
This tree is a native of the West India Islands, and the warmer 
parts of America, and appears from the MS. of Sir Hans Sloane, in 
the British Museum, to have been first cultivated in this country by 
the Duchess of Beaufort in 1699.° The wood, gum, bark, fruit, 
and even the flowers of this tree, have been found to possess 
medicinal qualities." The Wood is brought here principally from 
Jamaica in large pieces of four or five cwt. each, and, from its 
hardness and beauty, is in great demand for various articles of 
turnery ware.—It is extremely compact, and so heavy as to sink 
in water: the outer part is of a pale yellowish colour, the heart’ 
of a dark blackish brown, with a greater or less admixture of. 
green. It scarcely discovers any smell, unless heated, or while 
rasping, in which circumstances it yields a Jight aromatic one: 
chewed, it impresses a slight acrimony, biting the palate and 
fauces, Its pungency resides in a resinous matter, which is totally 
extracted by digestion in rectified spirit, and partially by boiling 
water. The quantity of solid extract, obtained by rectified spirit, 
amounts. to about one-fourth of the weight of the wood; with 
water, scarcely one-sixth is obtained.< The Gum, or rather gummy 
resin, 1s obtained by wounding the bark in different parts of the 
body of the tree, or by what has been called jagging. It exudes 
copiously from the wounds, though gradually ; and when a quantity 
is found accumulated upon the several wounded trees, hardened 
b Monardus divides the wood into three sorts, and C, Bauhin adopts two of 
these by the distinctions of Guaiacum magna matrice, and the Guaiacum pros 
pemodum sine matrice: these circumstances, however, depend upon the age, 
size, &c, of the tree. The icons of these species, given by Blackwell and oe 
ae, we ein: be considered as decisive. 
© Vide Aiton’s Hort. Kew. 
4 Long’s History of Jamaica, vol. 3. p. 725. 
© Lewis’s M. M. 330, 
