57 



N. Ord. SIMARUBACE^E. 

 Tribe Simarubete. 



Genus Picraena,* Llndl. B. & H., Gen., i, p. 311 ; Baill., Hist. 

 PL, iv, p. 494. Species 3, natives of tropical America. 



57. Picrsena excelsa, Lindley, Fl. Medica, p. 208 (1838). 

 Jamaica Quassia. Bitter Wood. Bitter Ash. 



Syn. Quassia excelsa, Swartz. Q. polygama, Lindsay. Simaruba 

 excelsa, DC. Picrasma excelsa, Planchon. 



Figures. Trans. Royal Soc. Edinburgh, iii, t. 6, cop. in Hayne, ix, 1. 16, 

 and Woodville, vol. v; Nees, t. 381; Steph. & Ch., t. 173 (from a 

 specimen in Linnaeus' herbarium) ; Baill., iv, fig. 472. 



Description. A tree, 50 60 feet high, with a straight, thick, 

 erect trunk and spreading branches, bark rather smooth, brownish- 

 grey, wrinkled ; the extremities with a short rufous down. Leaves 

 alternate, with small deciduous stipules, pinnate with 4 or 5 pairs 

 of leaflets and a terminal one, covered with fine, fulvous down 

 when young leaflets equal, shortly stalked, 2 4 inches long, 

 ovate- or oval- oblong, acute at the apex, somewhat tapering and 

 usually unequal at the base, entire, leathery, glabrous, paler and 

 with prominent veins below. Flowers small, stalked, polygamous 

 (bisexual and male), arranged in dense, much branched, corym- 

 bose-paniculate cymes, which are often extra- axillary, not so long 

 as the leaves. Bisexual flowers : calyx flat, with 5 distant, very 

 small, ovate, acute, persistent teeth. Petals 5, alternate with the 

 calyx-teeth, ovate-oblong, about inch long, pale yellowish -green, 

 valvate in bud. Stamens 5, alternating with the petals, inserted 

 at the lower part of the large hypogynous disk, about as long as 

 the petals, filaments tapering, hairy on the inside, anthers sub- 

 globose, yellow. Carpels usually 3 (sometimes 2), elevated on a 

 large, thick, rounded disk or gynophore, ovaries 1 -celled, slightly 

 united, globular, quite smooth, styles united in the lower half, 

 separate above, forming 3 (or 2) simple, spreading branches, much 



* Name from Trixpoc, bitter. 



