198 



MEDICAL BOTANY. 



Fig. 104. 



posed of trees and shrubs, having alternate, pinnate, exstipulate leaves, and a 

 very bitter bark. They are principally peculiar to the tropical regions of 

 America. 



Simaruba. — Aublet. 



Flowers unisexual. Sepals 5. Petals 5, longer than sepals, spreading. Male : sta- 

 mens almost as long as petals, arising around a receptacle having five small lobes at its 

 apex. Female : five ovaries, surrounded by 10 hairy scales. Style one, divided at base 

 into five, united at top, and bearing a five-lobed stigma. Fruit baccate. 



This genus was first established by Aublet, but was not admitted by bota- 

 nists for some time ; the species being included in Quassia ; it was again sepa- 

 rated by Richard, and made the type of a natural order. In this he has been 

 followed by most recent writers. The species are all large trees, with ever- 

 green foliage. 



S. amara, Aublet. — Male flowers decandrous. Stigma 5-partite. Leaves abruptly 

 pinnate ; leaflets alternate, almost sessile, pubescent beneath. 



Aublet, Guain. ii. 859 ; Lindley, Fl. Med. 207 ; Quassia simaruba, Wood- 

 ville, ii. 76 ; Wright, Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin., ii. 73 ; Stephenson and 

 Churchill, iff. 171. 



Common Names. — Simarouba ; Simarouba Quassia ; Mountain Damson. 



Foreign Names. — Simarouba de Cayenne, Fr. ; Simaruba, It. ; Simaruba 

 Quassia, Ger. 



Description. — A tall tree with long roots» 

 and a thick stem with a blackish and fur- 

 rowed bark and sending off alternate spread- 

 ing branches, whose bark is smooth and 

 gray, marked with yellow spots. The wood 

 is hard, white, and has scarcely any bitter 

 taste. The leaves are pinnate and are 

 alternate ; the leaflets are also alternate, 

 from two to nine on each side, about two 

 inches long, obovate, entire, somewhat 

 coriaceous, of a dark green above and 

 whitish beneath. The flowers are of a 

 yellowish-white colour, monoecious, and 

 collected in branched spikes or long 

 axillary panicles. (Dr. Wright states that 

 in Jamaica the tree is dioecious.) The 

 calyx is small, and divided into five obtuse, 

 erect segments. The petals are lanceolate, 

 equal, spreading, somewhat reflexed, and 

 much longer than the calyx. The stamens 

 are ten, equal, about as long as the corolla, 

 bearing oblong, incumbent anthers, with a 

 small hairy scale at base. The ovary is 

 ovate, five-parted, crowned with an erect, 

 cylindrical style, bearing a five-lobed stig- 

 ma, and surrounded at base with a ring of 

 hairy scales. The fruit consists of five 

 ovate, black, smooth, one-celled berries, all 

 connected with a fleshy, pentagonal recep- 

 tacle, and opening by a fissure when ma- 

 ture, each containing a single oblong seed. 



This tree is a native of Jamaica and several parts of South America. It 

 is known in Jamaica by the names of Mountain Damson, and Stavewood. 

 Although generally considered by botanists to appertain to Decandria Mono- 



1. Female flower. 



S. amara. 



2. Drupes. 

 . Stamen. 



3. Male flower. 



