590 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



1. SIMARUBA, Aubl. 



Trees, with bitter resinous juice and tonic properties. Leaves long-petiolate, ab- 

 ruptly pinnate; leaflets usually alternate, loug-petiolulate, conduplicate in the bud, 

 entire, coriaceous, 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 pis- 

 tillate flower reduced to minute scales; filaments free, filiform, thickened toward 

 the base, inserted on the back of a minute ciliate scale; anthers oblong, slightly emar- 

 ginate, introrse, attached on the back below the middle, 2-celled, the cells opening 

 longitudinally; ovary sessile on the disk, deeply 5-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 inverse, without albumen; 

 seed-coat membranaceous; cotyledons plano-convex, fleshy, the radicle very short, 

 partly included between the cotyledons, superior. 



Simaruba 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 family 

 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. Simaruba glauca, DC. Paradise-tree. 



Leaves 6'-l(X long and glabrous, with stout petioles 2'-3' in length, and usually 

 6 pairs of opposite or alternate ovate obovate or oval leaflets, rounded or slightly 



mucronate at the apex, often oblique at the base, thin, membranaceous and dark red 

 when they first unfold, soon becoming coriaceous, dark green, very lustrous above, 

 pale and glaucous on the lower surface, 2'-3' long and I'-l^' wide, with revolute 

 margins, prominent midribs, remote conspicuous primary veins, and stout petiolules 

 \'-\' in length. Flowers appearing in early spring, \'-\' long, on short stout club- 

 shaped glaucous pedicels, in panicles 12'-18' long and 18'-24' broad, with a stout 

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



