57 PICR^NA EXCELSA 



exceeding the stamens. Male flowers : petals more delicate, oval- 

 lanceolate and spreading, stamens longer than the petals, no trace 

 of carpels or gynophore, otherwise as the bisexual flowers. Fruit 

 consisting of 1 3, often 2, separate, black, shining, nearly 

 spherical drupes about the size of a large pea, supported on the 

 hardened, stalk-like gynophore, and with a short point on the 

 inner side marking the position of the style ; pulp scanty, endo- 

 carp crustaceous, thin, yellow, thicker at the inner side. Seed 

 solitary, attached by a broad hilum to the base of the inner side 

 of the drupe, which it completely fills, testa thin, marked with 

 ramifying vessels, embryo homogeneous, soft and fleshy, undivided, 

 with a small radicle ; no endosperm. 



Habitat. This large tree is common in the Island of Jamaica, 

 and is also found in some other West Indian Islands, as St. Kitts, 

 Antigua, and St. Vincent. Its foliage and habit are not unlike 

 those of the common Ash, whence one of its colonial names. 

 The flowers appear in October and November, and the fruit is 

 ripe in December and January. Small trees are grown in the 

 stoves of botanic gardens, but the plant has not yet flowered, at 

 least at Kew. 



Lindsay, in Trans. Royal Soc. Edinburgh, 1794, p. 205 ; Swartz, 



PI. Ind. occid., ii, p. 742; Grisebach, PI. Brit. W. Indies, p. 



140; Lindl., PI. Med., p. 208. 



Official Part and Names. QUASSIJS LIGNUM; the wood (B. P.). 

 The wood (Quassia Lignum) (I. P.). QUASSIA; the wood 

 (U. S. P.). 



Commerce. Quassia wood is exported from Jamaica, the 

 amount in 1873 being about 60 tons. 



General Characters and Composition. Quassia wood, or as it is 

 also called Bitter wood (or sometimes Jamaica Quassia wood, to 

 distinguish it from the original quassia wood, which is the 

 produce of Quassia amara, L., a native of Surinam, and therefore 

 known as Surinam Quassia wood, and which is described below 

 under the heading of Adulterations and Substitutions), is imported 

 in billets or logs of varying size, but often as thick as a man's 

 thigh, and several feet in length. These billets, which are 



