TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



1. SIMAROUBA Aubl. 



Trees, with resinous juice and tonic properties. Leaves long-petiolate, abruptly pin- 

 nate; leaflets usually alternate, long-pet iolulate, conduplicate in the bud, entire, coria- 

 ceous, glabrous or slightly puberulous below, feather- veined. Flowers in elongated 

 widely branched axillary and terminal panicles; disk cup-shaped, depressed in the sterile 

 flower, pubescent; stamens as long as the petals, in the pistillate flower reduced to minute 

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

 ciliate scale; anthers oblong, slightly emarginate, introrse, attached on the back below 

 the middle, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; ovary sessile on the disk, deeply 

 lobed, the lobes opposite the petals, rudimentary, lobulate, minute or wanting in the 

 staminate flower; styles united into a short column, with a 3-5-lobed spreading stigma. 

 Fruit composed of 1-5 sessile spreading drupes; flesh thin; stone crustaceous. Seeds in- 

 verse, without albumen; seed-coat membranaceous; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy, the 

 radicle very short, partly included between the cotyledons, superior. 



Simarouba with four species is confined to tropical America, and is distributed from the 

 coast of southern Florida to Brazil and Guatemala. The plants of this genus contain a 

 small amount of resin, a volatile oil, and an exceedingly bitter principle, quasin, with 

 tonic properties. 



The generic name is formed from Simarouba, the Carib name of one of the species. 



1. Simarouba glauca DC. Paradise-tree. 



Leaves 6'-10' long, glabrous, with a stout petiole 2'-3' in length, and usually 6 pairs of 

 opposite or alternate oblong-obovate or oval leaflets, rounded or slightly mucronate at 

 apex, usually oblique at base, membranaceous and dark red when they first unfold, 

 soon becoming coriaceous, dark green and very lustrous above, pale and glaucous below, 

 2'-3' long and I'-l-J' wide, with revolute margins, a prominent midrib, remote conspicuous 

 primary veins, and stout petiolules i' |' in length. Flowers appearing in early spring, |'-|' 

 long, on short stout club-shaped pedicels, in panicles 12'~18' long, and 18'-24' broad, with a 



Fig. 584 



stout pale glaucous stem and spreading branches from the axils of small acute scarious 

 deciduous bracts; petals fleshy, oval, often acute, pale yellow, and four or five times as 

 long as the glaucous calyx. Fruit nearly fully grown by the end of April and then bright 

 scarlet, about 1' long, ovoid, sometimes falcate, and slightly angled on the ventral suture, 

 becoming dark purple when fully ripe; seeds papillose, orange-brown, about ' long. 

 A round-headed tree, growing occasionally in Florida to the height of 50, with a straight 



