RUTACEA. 449 
useful in plantations and replanting, on account of the facility with 
which it grows in the most ungrateful soil, is used in feeding a 
butterfly’ which produces a textile silk less brilliant but stronger 
than that of the silkworm. The leaves of this tree are irritant; those 
who touch them may be attacked by vesicular or pustular erup- 
tions, caused by an acrid volatile substance. They have been tried, 
as has also the powdered bark, as vermicides; they kill ascarides, 
but are of little use against teniæ; they moreover cause violent 
colic, and treated with ether give a resinous vesicatory substance. 
In India, 4. excelsa? and malabarica have a bark used as a bitter and 
aromatic; it is administered in intermittent fever. The fruits of 
the latter are recommended in severe cases of headache and 
stomach affections. 
Among the Zygophylleæ the Guaiacums have long been the most 
famous of sudorific, antirheumatical, and antisyphilitic woods. Two 
species are especially employed: Guaïacum sanctum (fig. 514) and 
G. oficinale* The latter is now most used. It is a beautiful tree 
with blue flowers, from the Antilles, principally Cuba, Jamaica, 
St. Lucia, and neighbouring parts of the mainland. The wood 
reaches us in large logs, sometimes covered with bark, much 
heavier than water, formed of a yellow sapwood and brown heart, 
very compact, with the layers alternately directed from right to left. 
Its transverse section shows close radiating stripes traversed by 
vascular openings full of a greenish resin; the powder is balsamic, 
pungent, choking, and becomes green when in contact with the air 
and light. There is in commerce a wood with irregular layers, and 
another with an odour like vanilla. The bark is also met with 
sometimes ; it contains, like the wood but in very different propor- 
tions, several acids, gum, mineral substances, and especially a 
greenish-brown resin with a slight odour of benzine and a pungent 
flavour, much used in the same way as the wood itself; the resin of 
the bark is different from that of the wood.’ G. sanctum is fre- 

1 Bombyx Cynthia. Rév., in FU. Méd. du xix® Siècle, iii. 79, t. 8.— 
2 Roxs., Pl. Coromand., i. t. 23. Mog., Bot. Méd., 152, fig. 49. — ROSENTH., 
3 DC., Prodr., ii. 89, n. 4. — Pongelion Syn. Pl. Diaphor., 886.—BERG. & Scum., Off. 
Rueep., Hort, Malab., vi. t. 15. Gew., ii, t. 14, 6 (vulg. Jasmin d'Amérique, 
4 L., Spec., 546.— Lamx., Ill., t. 342— d'Afrique, Lignum vite Off.). 
Buackw., Herb., t. 350.—SLOAN., Hist., t. 5 See Gurs., loc. cit., 545.—FLÜCKIG., Phar- 
222, fig. 3.—Sw., Obs, 168. — Macrap., macog., 68. The acids are called guaiacic, 
Jam., i, 187.—ENDL., Enchirid., 617.—Gu1I8., guaiaconic and resino-guaiacic, The extractive 
Drog. Simpl., éd. 6, iii. 548, fig. 724.—NexEs,  bitter principle is called guaiacin. 
Pi, Off, t. 380.—Linpu., Fl, Med., 214,— 6 L., Spec., 546.—DC., Prodr., n. 4.—GuIB., 
VOL. IV. G G 
