TREES AND SHRUBS. 



PICRAMXIA, Sw. 



(Simarubaceae.) 



Picramnia, Swartz, Prodr. 27 (1783-88). — Schreber, Gen. 687. — Meissner, Gen. 75. — 



Endlicher, Gen. 1138. — Bentham & Hooker, Gen. i. 315. — Engler & Prantl, Pflanzenfam. 



iii. pt. iv. 228. 

 Tariri, Aublet, Hist. PL Guian. Suppl. ii. 37 (1775). 

 Brasiliastrum, Lamarck, Diet. i. 462 (1783). 

 Brasilium, Gmelin, Syst. ii. 417 (1791). 



Trees and shrubs, with bitter principles and slender terete brancblets. Leaves alternate, un- 

 equally pinnate, persistent, the leaflets subopposite to alternate, entire. Flowers dicecious, occa- 

 sionally perfect, small, glomerate on long pendulous spikes or racemes opposite the leaves; calyx 

 three- to five-parted, the lobes imbricated in the bud, rarely wanting ; stamens from three to five, 

 opposite the petals, inserted under the lobed depressed disk, in the pistillate flower reduced to linear 

 scales, or wanting ; filaments naked ; anthers two-celled, introrse, the cells opening longitudinally ; 

 ovary inserted on the disk, two- or three-celled, rudimentary in the staminate flower; style two- or 

 three-lobed, the lobes recurved and stigmatic on the inner surface, or crowned by a two- or three- 

 lobed sessile stigma ; ovules two in each cell, collateral, attached at the inner angle of the cell near 

 its apex, anatropous, raphe narrow ; micropyle superior. Fruit baccate, oblong to oblong-obovate, 

 two- or by abortion one-celled, the cells one-seeded ; seeds filling the cavity of the cell, plano- 

 convex, pendulous from the apex of the cell ; hilum minute, apical, the raphe conspicuous ; testa 

 membranaceous, adherent to the exalbuminous undivided embryo ; radicle superior, inconspicuous. 



Picramnia, with about twenty species, is confined to the tropical and subtropical regions of the 

 New World, one species extending into the southern part of Florida. The bitter principle in the 

 plants of this genus makes the bark of several of them useful in domestic remedies. 



The generic name, from m/cpos and ffdfjLvo?, is in reference to this bitter principle. 



