siMARUBE^. 8ILVA OF NORTH AMERICA on 



SIMARUBA. 



Flowers dioecious ; calyx 5-lobed, imbricated in aestivation ; petals 5, imbricated 

 in [estivation, hypogynous. Fruit composed of 1 to 5 drupes. Leaves alternate, 

 abruptly pinnate. 



Simaruba, Aublet, PI. Guiari. ii. 859. — Meisner, Gen. 65. — Endlicher, Gen. 1143. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen i 309 — 

 Baillon, Hist. PL iv. 490. 



Trees, with bitter resinous juice and tonic properties. Leaves persistent, long-petioled, destitute 

 of stipules, abruptly pinnate j leaflets usually alternate, conduplicate in vernation, entire, coriaceous, 

 glabrous or sliglitly puberulous on the lower surface, feather-veined. Flowers subc}Tnose in elongated 

 widely branched axillary and terminal panicles. Disk cup-shaped, depressed in the sterile flower, pubes- 

 cent. Stamens ten, inserted at the base of the dish, as long as the petals ; reduced in the fertile flower 

 to minute scales ; filaments free, filiform, thickened towards the base, inserted on the back of a minute 

 cihate scale ; anthers oblong, slightly emargmate, introrse, attached on the back below the middle, two- 

 celled, the ceUs opening longitudinally. Ovary sessile on the disk, deeply five-lobed, the lobes opposite 

 the petals, five-ceUed ; rudimentary, lobulate, minute or wanting in the sterile flower; styles united into 

 a short column crowned by a three to five-lobed spreading stigma ; ovules sohtary in the cells, suspended 

 from their inner angle towards the apes, anatropousj raphe ventral j micropyle superior. Drupes 

 sessile, spreading; sarcocarp thin, fleshy; putamen crustaceous. Seed inverse, esalbuminous ; testa 

 membranaceous ; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy ; the radicle very short, partly included between the 

 cotyledons, superior. 



The genus Slmaruba, of which foui- species are known, is confined to tropical America. Simariiba 

 glauca, a widely distributed tree in the West Indies, and in Central and South America, extends to the 

 coast of southern Florida, the most northern station of the genus. Simariiba amara,^ the type of the 

 genus, IS a native of Guiana and the islands of the Caribbean Sea. Simaruha versicolor ^ inhabits 

 Brazil and Guatemala, and Simaruha Ttilce ^ the island of Porto Rico. 



Simaruba, in common with several other genera of its family, contains a small amount of resin, a 

 volatile oil, and an exceedingly bitter principle, quassin, which give it tonic properties and make it 

 digestible. The bark of the roots is most active, although that of the trunk and branches, like the wood 

 of ah the species, is bitter, aromatic, and tonic. The bark of the root of ;S^. amara furnishes a valuable 

 tonic; it is purgative and emetic, and is used in Guiana In the treatment of fevers and diarrhoea.* 

 Snnaruba bark was first sent to Europe In 1713,^ where it was at one time used in considerable quanti- 

 ties, and is still occasionally met with in commerce in the form of long narrow quills.^ The bark of the 

 root of S. glauca possesses the same properties, and is occasionally used for the same purposes.^ The 



^ Aublet, PI. Guian. ii. 860, t. 331, 332. —A. do Jussieu, Mem. » Urban, Jahrbuch Konig. Bot. Gart. Berlin, iv. 245. 



Mus. xii. 514, t. 27, f. 44. — Grisebach, Fl. Brit. W. Ind. 139. — * Aublet, PI. Guian. ii. 860. - Lindley, Fl. Med. 208. 



Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Cent. i. 173. = WoodviUe, Med. Bat. ii. 211, t. 7G. 



' St. Hilaii-e, PI. Usuelles Brasil. 1, t. 5 ; Fl Bras. Merid. i. 70. — . ^ Still<i & Maisch, Nat. Dispens. ed. 2, 1295. ~ Guibourt, Hist. 



Engler, Martius FL Brasil. xii. 2, 226. —Hemsley, Bot. Biol. Am. Drag. cd. 7, iii. 570. 

 *^^'"- >■ 173. T Macfadyen, Fl. Jam. 198. — StQl^ & Maisch, I. c. 



