250 THE COMMERCIAL QUASSIA, OR BITTERWOOD. 



the surface of the leaves, into a basket such as the natives use for -winnow- 

 ing corn. On asking them what they were collecting this for, they told me 

 it was to sell to the Umritsur dyers, who give them one rupee (2s.) for the 

 ' Angrezi seer' of the substance when dry. In order to dry it, they rub the 

 cottony matter and the insect into balls of a soft consistence, and then dry 

 this in the sun on a sirky mat. By this process the insects are squeezed, 

 and their colouring matter absorbed by their cottony envelope. The 

 collecting of the cochineal must be rather a profitable concern for the 

 gatherers of it, as one man, whom I watched, in about two or three 

 hours had collected about four seers of the substance. In Cashmere the 

 Indian cochineal sells for one rupee the half-seer, and hence one would 

 infer that the insect is scarcer there than in this part of the country."* 



From a combination of favourable circumstances, not well understood, 

 all the insect tribes are subject, at uncertain intervals, to seasons of excessive 

 propagation. When this takes place, parasitic insects often devour the 

 plants on which they naturally feed, and so cut off the means of such 

 excessive reproduction in the succeeding season. This appears to be the 

 natural check to an increase of creatures which might prove fatal even to 

 man himself ; and this was precisely what took place in the Punjab in 1848 ; 

 the ungathered myriads of the cochineal insects completely destroyed, for a 

 time, all the cactus-plants in the district. 



THE COMMERCIAL QUASSIA, OR BITTERWOOD. 



BY DR. BOWERBANK. 



A good deal of uncertainty exists as to the source of the True Bitter- 

 wood of Commerce. This has arisen from confounding together the pro- 

 duct of three trees belonging to the natural order Simarubacese, namely, the 

 Quassia amara — Surinam Bitterwood — the Simaruba officinalis, Officinal 

 Bitterwood, or Simaruba, and the Picrazna excelsa, Lofty Bitterwood. 



The first, the Quassia amara of Linnaeus, is a beautiful tree, seldom 

 exceeding in its growth, twelve or fourteen feet. It thrives well in 

 Guiana, Panama, and Surinam, from the latter of which it was brought to 

 Jamaica. The following is a description of it as given by Dr. Lindley, in 

 his ' Medical Flora :' — " Flowers hermaphrodite, calyx short, 5 parted. 

 Petals, 5, much longer, arranged in a tubular form. Stamens 10, longer 

 than the petals. Ovaries 5, placed on a receptacle broader than them- 

 selves ; styles the same number, distinct at the base, then united into one 

 very large one terminating in a nearly equal five-furrowed stigma. Fruit 

 drupaceous — A de J. 



" Leaves alternate, unequally pinnate ; leaflets in two pairs, opposite, 



* Transactions of the Agri-Hort. Soc. of India, vol. ix. 



