THE QUASSIA FAMILY 



FAMILY SIMAROUBACE^ de Candolle 



j]HE Quassia Family consists of nearly 30 genera, including about 150 

 species of trees and shrubs, together with a few herbaceous plants, 

 widely distributed in warm and tropical regions of both the Old 

 World and the New, a few only inhabiting the temperate zones. 

 They have a bitter sap, which is usually milky, and most of them have pinnate 

 leaves without stipules. Their flowers are mostly dioecious or polygamous, small, 

 regular and in axillary or terminal clusters. The calyx is 3-lobed to 5-lobed, or 

 of 3 to s persistent sepals; the disk of the flower is well developed, usually ring- 

 like or cup-Uke; there are from 3 to 5 deciduous petals and as many or twice as 

 many stamens in the staminate flowers with separate filaments and introrse an- 

 thers; the pistillate flowers have 2 to 5 pistils which are more or less united, their 

 ovaries sometimes completely united; each cavity or separate ovary usually con- 

 tains one pendulous ovule; there are also commonly several abortive filaments 

 or staminodes in the pistillate flowers. The fruit is a drupe, berry, capsule or 

 samara in the different genera. 



The bitter principle pervading most members of this family has caused the 

 bark or wood of many of the species to be employed as tonic and febrifuge reme- 

 dies; the most generally used is Quassia, the wood of Picraena excelsa (Swartz) 

 Planchon, of Jamaica, and that of Quassia amara Linnaeus, of Guiana. It is 

 usually found in the shops as chips; drinking cups turned out of the wood exhibit 

 its persistent bitterness, water placed in them for a few moments becoming in- 

 tensely bitter, forming a very convenient way to secure its tonic properties, which 

 they continue to supply for a considerable time. An infusion of the chips, sweet- 

 ened with sugar is used to poison flies. 



The North American trees of this family are species of the following genera; 

 all have pinnately compound leaves. 



Fruit a drupe or berry. 



Ovaiy deeply lobed; fruit drupaceous. i. Simarouba. 



Ovary not lobed, 2-celled to s-celled; fruit a beny. 2. Picranmia. 

 Fruit a samara or winged capsule. 



Petals 5 or 6; fruit a samara; introduced Asiatic tree. 3. Ailanthus. 



Petals none; fruit a hairy, winged capsule; native tree of southern Florida. 4. Alvaradoa. 



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