5^4 



Gumbo Limbo 



I. GUMBO LIMBO 



GENUS SIMAROUBA AUBLET 

 Species Simarouba medicinalis Endlicher 



IMAROUBA (the name aboriginal for the type species, 5. amara Aublet 

 in Guiana) includes some lo species of resinous evergreen trees with 

 alternate odd-pinnate leaves, natives of tropical and subtropical 

 America. Their small flowers are numerous in large panicles, the 

 pistillate ones succeeded by small drupes. 



Gumbo Limbo, known also as Bitter-wood, Paradise tree, and on the Bahama 



islands as Ash, inhabits southern Florida, 

 the Bahamas and Jamaica, and probably 

 occurs also on Cuba; it has been confused, 

 however, with the similar Cuban Simarouha 

 glauca de Candolle. It attains a maximum 

 height of about 17 meters, with a trunk up 

 to 5 dm. in diameter. 



The bark is thick, reddish brown and 

 somewhat scaly; the young twigs are green 

 and smooth, turning reddish brown. The 

 leaves are 3 dm. long or less, composed of 

 about 13 leaflets or fewer, the leaf- axis 

 slender and round, the leaf- stalk long; the 

 leaflets are oblong to oblong-obovate, leath- 

 ery in texture, 4 to 8 cm. long, blunt or 

 bluntly pointed, entire-margined, veiy 

 bright green and strongly shining on the 

 upper side, pale and dull beneath, smooth 

 or with some minute hairs, the two surfaces 

 contrasting very strongly in color and luster. The panicles of flowers are often as 

 long as the leaves, the flowers borne 2 to 6 together or singly along the branches on 

 very short stalks; the flowers are about 10 mm. broad when expanded and have 5 

 very short ovate sepals and 5 ovate to oblong- lanceolate yellowish petals; the 

 staminate ones have 10 stamens, each with a toothed scale at the base of the fila- 

 ment; the pistillate ones have a deeply 5-lobed ovary with 5 recurved styles, which 

 ripens into 5 or fewer red or purple oval drupes about 2 cm. long. 



The bark yields a bitter tonic. The wood is soft, brownish, and of little value; 

 its specific gravity is about 0.40. 



Fig. 539. Gumbo Limbo. 



