17 
JAMAICA DOGWOOD. 
On THe Mepicat Properties or THE Piscip1a EryTurina, 
or Jamaica Docwoop. By Wixiram Hamitton, M.B., 
Corresponding Member of the Medico-Botanical Society. 
Tue Jamaica dogwood tree, or Piscidia Erythrina, is a 
small branching tree, of from fifteen to twenty feet in height, 
common in the low grounds near the sea, in most of the 
West India islands, and every where by the road sides 
(according to Jacquin) in Jamaica, where it flowers, accord- 
ing to my observations, in the months of March, April, and 
May, during which it is wholly destitute of leaves, which 
rarely appear before the period of inflorescence has passed. 
It belongs to the Linnean class and order of Diadelphia 
Decandria, and is distinguished from other plants of the same 
class and order by its acute stigma, and four-winged legume, 
enclosing a number of compressed, oblongo-reniform seeds. 
Its leaves, which are periodically deciduous, are unequally 
pinnated, with ovate, very entire, pubescent leaflets. Towards 
the middle or latter end of March, thyrsoidal racemes of 
white papilionaceous flowers, of rather a large size, wholly 
destitute of smell, make their appearance at the extremities 
of the younger branches, and continue progressively expand- 
ing till about the middle of May, when they are succeeded 
by clusters of linear compressed legumes, furnished with four 
membranaceous, longitudinal wings, greatly exceeding the 
legume itself in breadth: the legume consists of one cell, 
nearly united between the seeds, so as to appear to a careless 
observer like a many-celled legume. The seeds, which I 
have always observed to be very much compressed, and of 
an oblong reniform shape, Swarrz describes as roundish. 
According to Jacquin, the leaves and branches of this 
tree, bruised and mixed with water, intoxicate the fish it 
contains, making them swim blindly on the surface, so as to 
become an easy prey to the fisherman: his words are, “ Folia 
ramulique contusa, et aquis injecta, pisces inebriant, ut aquis 
supernatent, manuque capi possint: quam virtutem cum 
multis aliis plantis Americanis communem hee arbor possi- 
det.” Among the other West Indian plants to which he re- 
fers in the concluding part of the sentence as sharing this 
property of intoxicating fish, are the Jacquinia Armillaris, 
called by the Spaniards ef Barbasco, by the French Bois 
bracelets, and by the English pieerust, a low but ornamental 
shrub common on the seacoast in most of the Antilles, and 
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